Fear of Falling

Anyone who’s held a newborn gets the subtle reminder that people are born with a fear of falling. Well, maybe newborns don’t actually feel afraid of it (and it’s impossible to ask them), but their grasping reflex suggests that their bodies are built to prevent themselves from a fall. Adults bond with babies through that clutching fist of a grasp. It feels great when they grab hold around your grown-up finger, but it’s really just their natural reflex to hold on. When the inside of a baby’s palm is touched, they are triggered to clamp their fingers closed tight — so tight that the fierce grip is strong enough to sustain their own weight should the tiny ones need to protect themselves from a fall. All of us born with it… all of us since grown out of it. However, even though we no longer have this reflex as adults, a lot of us grown-ups still have a fear of falling.

I bring this up because of a dream that I had. It was a weird one. (Maybe they’re all weird ones.) I don’t remember why I was falling or how I got there or where I’d fallen from, but in my dream my husband Tom and I were together falling from the sky toward the ground. No parachute, no plan, we were just free-falling out of the sky with the inevitability of the drop ending in a smoosh of death on the ground. Sounds morbid if I tell it like that, but it wasn’t. In this dream, falling was business-as-usual for Tom and me. We were going about our day on this long, long, long fall to earth, knowing full well that our trip would eventually end in a big splat, but instead of panicking or screaming on the way, we were making conversation about what we could make for dinner and whether or not I should shower before him or him before me….would I have enough time to do my hair if he showered first, that sort of thing. We both remarked that it was kind of strange to be falling like this, to tell each other how it seemed like a typical day even though we had full awareness of our destiny to hit bottom. In the dream, we both felt like we were about midway through our tumble downward, and we were used to the feeling of zero control as we continued to obey gravity. Neither of us were scared. 

I woke up after this dream with no great revelation at first, but even from the first telling of it I could see the obvious correlation to a fear of powerlessness over dying. And then the existential awareness of, “Aren’t we all helplessly tumbling closer to death through this whole ride? Aren’t we all just trying to pass the time well until we eventually connect with death at the end of our turn?” I think for me the answer is yes, and I think it’s probably a yes for most of us. In the meantime, we should be planning dinner and well-timed showers, I guess.

I recently had the privilege to go on a treacherous rickety train ride through the mountains of Alaska. The views were spectacular, and unless we had taken a helicopter ride or a days-long hike through the wilderness, we wouldn’t have gotten the chance to see all that this train ride had to offer. The trouble in my case was that this train ride scared the pants off me (not literally, the pants did stay on — it was cold even indoors on that thing). It was so frightening that I was hiding my face in Tom’s shoulder. He had the window seat. I sat on the aisle, but beyond his window was a sheer drop of I-don’t-even-know-how-far. I couldn’t look without getting whoozy. Some people who had been seated on the opposite side of the drop tried to stand up and lean over us to peer out our window. They wanted to see just how far down the valley bottom was, but they couldn’t find it, and their leaning over caused me greater concern that the whole train would suddenly give up it’s chugging and tip off the tracks, sending us all careening to our deaths. Falling in that case wouldn’t feel like a great business-as-usual option like it had in my dream. When I tried to adopt the idea of calming myself by looking for the ground with them, it only made it worse. What I mean is that I really couldn’t see down that far! There was no visible ground on our side of the train at all, not on the side of the train tracks or beyond. A bottomless valley was just outside the glass of our window. It was as if there were no shoulder on the path for the tracks, and I imagined that that meant that the tracks were right on the very edge. (I learned later that they actually were right on the very edge!) My mind quickly jumped to the thought that I couldn’t even ask them to stop the train to let me out. Sorry. No escape. There was honestly no place to put my feet down next to the train anyway, and I knew this. So, I was in it for the long haul, and I didn’t just have a fear of falling; I was terrified of falling.

My whining into Tom’s arm and trembling didn’t stop me from peeking up as often as I could stand to. I didn’t want to miss all of it. When I did look, I got to witness the beauty of the misty wisps of pure white clouds hanging like chalk smudges with muted edges between the mountains, around the mountains, and even laying right on the mountains. These views that seemed to be painted by God just for us were definitely un-missable and worth all the fright I felt over the danger. I wanted to see it. I wanted to be on that train, but I was really scared, too. Fear of falling. 

About midway through our trek to the end of the single track where we would then begin heading backward on the same track to our starting point, one of the tour guides popped in from the car ahead of ours with the announcement that we were allowed to step onto the platform in between the cars and stand outside the train car to take pictures or just see the sights. She suspected this would be a coveted spot for passengers to stretch their legs to stand by the railing watching the whooshing ground underneath go by, so she asked us each to take our turns quickly and allow others to take their turns also. “Be kind to others; no hogging the platform” is what she meant. 

Much to the surprise of the poor passengers who’d been witnessing my frightened cry-baby act for the first part of the ride, I was one of the first to say I’d like to get out of my seat and head outside between the cars to stand by the railing. I was nervous, but more than that, I really needed to see the view for myself with the visible ground solidly underneath the train, with the train securely connected to the track as we went along. By looking in between the train cars, I found comfort that something was holding us up. Then I took some selfies, even leaned out over the side of the metal railing to drink it all in, the wind blowing in my face — no safety harness, no seatbelt, no guardrail. I’m glad I had a seize the day kind of moment and didn’t let it pass me by. I know I would’ve regretted it if I hadn’t gone outside. As it turns out, one-by-one, I think every passenger from our car took their turn out there and went back to their seats victorious over whatever worry they may have had initially. It was a really cool experience.

The fear of falling is natural. The reason is obvious. The frail human body doesn’t do well with falls. We get hurt that way. So, yes, God created us with some reflexes that can keep us safe. We hang on with a tight fist to what keeps us from falling — grown-up fingers, strong shoulders on train rides, sturdy railings. It’s a good mechanism to put to use when we need it. For me, my fist is regularly clinging to the word of God, to prayer, to the confidence that I have in the Holy presence of a loving Father who has my good in mind. And He has been clear to tell me this week through this little dreamy object lesson that I don’t need to stay in the train car of life crying into the shoulder of someone braver than I am. I can get up and check it all out for myself, holding on to my faith all the while. Faith won’t erase the falling, and it won’t change the fact that there is indeed a bottom (an end) to this free-fall. However, it does bring me freedom to catch the joy in the notion that allowing the free-fall and acknowledging our perpetual lack of control over it is liberating. And that’s because I trust in Someone who is greater than me — and He’s in full control. He is the One who makes sure, even when I cannot see it for myself, that the train I’m traveling on is in fact on solid ground.

I guess what I think God is saying to me through these experiences is that we are all falling. We are always falling. We are all born to head toward death. And thinking this way isn’t dark and gloomy, it’s actually wise to stay aware of our mortality. We never do know when our last day is. Sometimes we get to see it coming, and sometimes it takes us by surprise, but it’s a fall the whole while regardless. And what we do with our time during the fall makes all the difference. Being afraid of it can rob us of the view, can steal the days quicker than death itself. So, God says, live. Go out on the edge and let the wind bite at your face. Look over the side to see the bottom to remind you that it’s there, but then get back to looking up. Tighten your grip on God Himself and get on with planning and living.

“Now, to Him that is able to keep you from falling, and to present you faultless before the presence of His glory with exceeding joy, to the only wise God our Savior, be glory and majesty, dominion and power, both now and ever. Amen.” Jude 23-23

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