Falling with Grace
By George Herrick, life and recovery coach, shaman and artist
Posted on
Stand up for what is right!
Stand out from those who settle!
Stand tall in your convictions!
Yes, yes and yes. To make a stand or take a stand is noble, courageous. And so needed, especially these days when there is such a lack of integrity in so many sectors of life.
And yet we are human. We are going to fall.
When we do, it is easy to be hard on ourselves. The culture likes to be hard on public figures, who fall. Our social environments tend to be hard on peers or family members, who fall. Other people can be hard on us when we fall. So it is easy to be hard on ourselves when we fall.
Still, as much as we try to avoid it, we will fall. My birthday occurred on Good Friday this year. As I took special note and reread the Passion story, I was reminded that Jesus fell carrying the burden of the cross. And in some respects, he fell in distrust when asking God why he’d been forsaken. Judas fell in his betrayal. Peter fell in his denial. The people fell in choosing Barabbas. Everybody falls.
In 2014, Mercy By The Sea was generous and kind enough to allow me to stay for a period of time. I came to Mercy because I had fallen – my marriage was coming apart, in large part because of mistakes and missteps I had made. I barely slept on my first night, despite the soothing harmonies of a rhythmic surf and gentle breeze.
In the morning, I walked to the beach, carrying grief and shame as if dropping them would break the world. I didn’t want them, but they were my charges at the time and my responsibility to deal with. The sun was up before me, and I stood on the sand in its glow. I needed to have the sun illuminate this fallen man – I didn’t like it, but I needed it. I knew there was no good to come from hiding. I had to stand in the light of truth in whatever way I could.
Walking the shore, how could I help but notice the stones that the sea had strewn everywhere, and the cairns (stacked stones) that people had built with them? Gathering a big handful of flat and textured stones, I strolled to one of the boulders that rise up where sand and sound meet and built a cairn of my own. Then I sat, gazing at it, naturally drawn to meditate on its stability, balance, and even its beauty.
Until the breeze picked up and jostled just the right stone to make the whole thing fall. The symbolism was not lost on me!
The whole process is one of grace. Grace is the love and courage that enables us to believe, to make a stand. And also, grace is what enables us, when we fall, to heal, to rise again, to stand in/with/for what matters to us.
That was the very beginning of my journey back from that very hard and painful fall. My wife and I reunited eight months later, and are about to honor our anniversary — on Earth Day! — by attending the wedding of one of her nephews. And since that day on the beach in 2014, I have built a cairn every day – over 1260 and counting – publishing them daily on Facebook with an original meditation. Soon many of them will be found in my first book. Another stand about to be taken!
We want to stand. We are called to stand. We do everything in our power to stand. And we will fall. We will make messes of things. We will make mistakes and often others besides ourselves will be hurt. The question is, can we take ownership and responsibility for our falling? Can we have the integrity to make amends and to learn? In other words, can we fall with grace?
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