When your standing on the edge - take the keap of faith

Growing up in the belly of the Ozarks during the early part of the 20^th century, my Dad, and his brothers passed through rituals of sorts, which were also leaps of faith in tasks given to be completed. Being the oldest male, Dad passed through the rituals of the hills and later on, his brothers (7 in number) would complete them as well. All leaps of faith on the way to manhood and the lessons of life.

Dad never spoke of the rituals and I was only to find out later by way of two very special uncles later in life, Gene and Lonnie who were two of the last in following his footsteps. One being at the age of five, my grandpa would put a rifle in their hands and send each into the woods instructing not too return until a kill had been made. My Dad, in the years I knew him never owned a gun though he received a bronze plaque in Egypt during WWII for his marksmanship. I still have the plaque – one he never acknowledged in life. I remember a time when I was a teenager and after a falling out with a long time employer Dad took a job in a warehouse with a requirement he carried a gun. Hearing this, I feared for him and begged him not to keep the job. Shortly afterwards he returned to his previous employer on my request and left the job. Unknowing of his true skill with a gun from the time he was five, I could not see a picture in my mind of him being capable of using a gun for any reason. I do remember a 12 gauge being given to my oldest brother as a young teen with my brother returning later in the day with the back half of a rabbit, all that was left after the blast of the gun. If Dad laughed that day, it was not outwardly and just accepted the act for what it was. Both father and son in a following of ritual and self-faith. Like his parents before, another generation being raised by lessons of self-realization rather than commands without experience. Experiencing life was out lessons given in building a strong inner faith in ourselves and the world around us.

Another ritual the boys passed through was climbing a cliff face over a river in the Ozarks at twelve to thirteen years old and jumping to the river below. When the time came for Lonnie, Gene and their cousin Ken one summer day, all three made the climb. Lonnie and Ken made the jump, completed the ritual while Gene climbed back down the face of rock, and met them below. This time of hesitation of faith stayed with Gene the rest of his life in regret. Although he went on to fight in WWII also, relying on his inner faith and coming back home again he had yet to move beyond the ritual as a boy where he climbed down rather than take a leap of faith which would take him from a boy to a man as his brothers had done before him. 

 

During Gene’s final years, as he was diagnosed with Cancer and sent home to make his final plans, he took a leap of inner faith and not only lived six weeks, but three years untreated my medicine and relying on faith until his heart finally said he found the largest faith in leaving this world. A man who was born into a family from the Ozarks, each had taken the rituals of the hills and found life either to be on solid ground of a nature created from inner faith. Gene spent life struggling with the very isolated time on the rock face. With a very brilliant mind, which made many others wealthy in this life, during the last few years of his life still, found himself in conflict with not taking that leap of faith so long ago? Yet, when faced with the mortal decisions which faced him – he took that leap from the face of a cliff by taking his life into his hands, studying the more holistic route in fighting what had been told would be futile and being that witness in his own inner faith and spending time with those in the community faced with the same diagnosis of cancer and raising the energy as they stood on a rock face of mortality in taking a jump into an unknown depth in the process.

Like them before me, I have always felt the need to experience the unknown to know the unknown. The story of another to me was not credible to experience, to know healing I needed to experience healing. To know this spiritual experience I had to know the spiritual experience. To speak of communication I had to know communication as my experience. To be, I had to be who I am. For being, I can share yet each is a never-ending story. Life is about stretching the inner faith beyond where you ever believed you could go from within. When asked to take the leap, it is about letting go of all fear and jumping off a comfortable cloud into the unknown. It is about trust in what is unseen in being able to see what lies in the depth of your heart and soul. You are one on the face of your time in being a clock keeper, gatekeeper, and guardian from within.

Do I ask for assistance in taking those leaps, I ask in the form of strength and protection as I rise or fall to a challenge. I seen challenge as growth, I see support in the raising of the energy to complete the tasks and rituals of life. I start and end each day in prayer, thanksgiving and being grateful for the assistance of not only spirit but those before me who completed the lessons I have learned and have yet to learn through ongoing moments when a challenge to jump is presented and I will choose whether to take a jump into the unknown, to choose when to carry my ammunition or let it rest and to know when the jump is complete I will once again surface and swim or rest and let the flow ripple around my being as it surrounds another with the same challenge. 

Rituals, we could name many in life, which present and take form each day, how we choose to accept and deny the challenge is knowing for each challenge denied it will resurface in another form to be re accepted until completed with no magic number, which makes the invitation to leap cancelled. See today for what it is, unknown yet certain to be the divine of you exploring your inner faith, alone and uncertain you are not. Fear is only the unknown, unexplored. Be the explorer with eyes wide open to the depths and highs or life. Regret only comes from self-denial you are being held in faith.