God said, “Come to the edge.” They said, “No, we’re afraid we’ll fall.” “Come to the edge,” God said. “No, we’re afraid we’ll fall.” “Come to the edge,” God said again. They came. God pushed them. They flew.
-- Guillaume Appollinare

Ah, they flew. But what if you didn’t fly?

The mountain was a tall one. At the very top, there you stand, perched high above any other thing, looking for a way to get off this mountain.

You’ve been to this mountain’s cliff before. Remember it? This is the same cliff where the edge is named “almost did it.” This is the cliff, if you’ll remember, where you stopped short of taking that final step out of fear that you’d fail – or is this the one where you were afraid you’d succeed? This is the edge where you became frustrated and thus lost your focus which left you incapable of ever deciding what to do about the edge. This is the edge in which your distractions made a groove deep enough for you get caught in, and now you’re having trouble reaching the top of that gulch so you can keep moving toward and beyond the edge of the cliff.

You’re being beckoned to the edge, and really, you have no choice but to go. You can’t stay on this mountain; its resources are low and it’s draining you of your own. You must get off that mountain by going to its edge and taking a step.

At the edge, you feel yearnings, urgings, and promptings strong enough to make you move. So, with hope in your heart and a silent prayer on your lips, you step out off the edge.

And you fall! Quickly and unpleasantly!

But during the fall, you’re able to grab hold of a branch jutting from the side of the mountain, one strong enough to hold you up, allowing you to get a good view of where you fell from and the distance you traveled to get to this branch. You rest there for a while gathering strength and formulating a plan to safely get off this mountain from where you are. Though a devastating fall, you realize you made it over the edge and want to continue this trek with as much of your slightly bruised confidence still intact. When the branch begins to give way, you realize you’ve reflected and licked your wounds too long and crafting a plan must come quickly.

You look to your right and notice there’s another smaller cliff of opportunity if you could just make it there. Using the weary branch to steady you, you’re able to scale the side of the mountain, placing your feet solidly on rocks that protrude from the mountain. You easily make it to the cliff, scout your situation, take time to regroup, and think on a plan to keep moving off from the mountain.

But before you can set your plan in stone, it rains and your safe cliff starts to erode, giving you only days and hours to move before your small cliff is gone.

As the cliff wears away, you notice just below there is a cave and as it gets dark and continues to rain, you climb down jutting rocks to the cavern and are thankful for a shelter in which to get rest so can rejuvenate for the trek ahead.

When you wake again, you realize you’re not alone and the company you’re keeping is not only angry that you’re in its space, but it’s furious that you seem to have the wherewithal to move along when you want to. Not wanting to overstay your welcome, you quickly leave the cave and spot a huge boulder sitting on what appears to be a path that has a bit of a decline. Wondering why the rock hasn’t already moved down the hill of the mountain, you push it and it slides a little. Thinking this is your moment of opportunity, you hop on top of the rock and it starts a slow skid down the hill.

As you slide comfortably along the side of the mountain, the rock begins to pick up speed, and before you can stop it, the rock comes haltingly to the end of the trail, throwing you into the side of the mountain, sandwiching you, and leaving you little room to breathe. Now you’re caught between a rock and a hard place!

As time goes on, you’re able to push the rock off and regain your composure though you’re a might disjointed now because of the pressure from the rock. You look up again to see from where you’ve come and you notice a rope hanging from the side of the cliff where you started. (Funny, you don’t remember leaving a rope behind.) Trying to figure out how the rope got there, what it’s tied to, and where it leads, you notice the company you kept earlier is creeping up on you and, this time, you see hunger and demise in its eyes. No longer are you simply considering the origin or ending of the rope, you grab hold and travel it downward as far as it’ll take you.

To your surprise, the rope is sturdy and secure. It even seems to be steadily, yet smoothly, lowering itself.

The rope ends at a clearing rich with mountainous trees and flowers and a flowing spring of turquoise colored water. You drink from it, see your ragged reflection, then wonder where this flowing water came from and begins. As you follow the river, you notice a small raft with the initials G.G. on it. Thinking there must be someone else around you wait for their return hoping they’d steer you to your final destination. Days, months, and years later, that someone never comes. But the boat with the G.G. is still there. You decide to get in the boat and follow the river, planning to get where you needed to be then later returning the boat to its original place.

You navigate the small craft and it takes you to another side of the mountain where you find a team of fishermen loading their fish. You make friends with them, break bread with them, and tell them your needs. They offer to take you a few miles toward your destination and tell you the rest is up to you for they aren’t going your way and here’s where you must find your own way.

You’ve come so far, but you’re still not completely off the mountain. In the quiet of the moment, you pray and listen for guidance in the wind. You suddenly notice the same rope that saved you before blowing softly in the wind. You grab hold of it, believing wholeheartedly in its strength and ability to carry you away from confusion, danger, despair, and anything else you start to feel as you make your way down this mountain.

This time the rope carries you far way from the mountain and you see just how big the thing is. You become both incredulous and terrified about where you’ve been and even what lies ahead, and as you do, the rope becomes hot, burning your hands, causing you to let go, causing you to fall.

While watching the hard ground get closer and closer, you think this can’t be your destiny. You can’t have travailed a mountain to now just hit the ground and die. You pray, you think of what saved you before now, you think of the things you learned along the way, you think of how you relied on many things but the one true thing driving it all was God’s grace – or G.G. for short. Just as you close your eyes to accept your impending doom, an oak tree in full bloom comes out of nowhere and breaks your fall.

You climb down the tree, touch ground, dust yourself off, and look up again to see from where you came. As you look up, you see a cloud in the shape of a dove. Or is that a hand? Whichever it is, you fall prostrate in praise and muse on the fact that had you flown, you would have gotten here quicker. But, you think, you wouldn’t have conquered that mountain.

Sadiqqa © 2007