Walking Backwards
“Climb the reading mountain Jackie!” That was my daily encouragement to my son as he patiently plodded through “A-A-apple. B-B- ball.” When learning to read was arduous, and deciphering words often led to tears (both his and mine), I held out this one golden carrot...that every day he was moving forward, climbing the reading mountain; that climbing a mountain is slow and sweaty, but worth the work. Everything about the journey to great books filled with glorious adventures required believing...believing that we needed to keep looking ahead. Thankfully, that little guy had the makings of a pioneer, and the perseverance of a valiant warrior, who very quickly looked with scorn at Fun with Dick and Jane, and set his sights on Les Miserable. And this applies to more than phonics. We all look to the beautiful horizon called “What’s next?”
“Put your best foot forward!” they say. “Leave the past behind.” “Focus on the future.” We’ve all heard these brave battle cries, or said them ourselves. We’re the champions of forward motion, the crusaders of uncharted territory. This is healthy. Surely this is right. Those who grieve learn they must move through to press on to the “new normal”. Those who train for races aim for marathon goals. Mamas and Daddies cheer the first steps, the first day of school, the graduation, the driver’s license (well maybe not that one), the new job, the wedding...and on and on it goes. We overcome obstacles, survive loss, and achieve great dreams...all by choosing to move forward. It’s a principle of Biblical proportion: the apostle Paul says, “Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal...” Forward means gain, right?
Yes, I do agree, because forward has carried me through a lot. And I’m a vision-girl; I love to look into the future and anticipate new things. But lately I’ve been wondering...have some things gotten lost along the path forward? Could walking backwards show me a thing or two? This year, life’s bumps and bruises have had a curious effect on me. Rather than feeling my usual need to “pull myself up by my bootstraps and move on” as my mother would say, I began to explore some long-buried memories, like old forgotten and faded photographs, and to my own perplexing surprise, I began walking backwards. If you were here with me, I might shyly grab your hand and pull you along the backward path with me. You could meet...her.
She’s a little girl with a short-haired bob and a happy smile. I remember scenes from her life long ago...rolling down green hillsides, splashing in puddles, performing running front flips onto the couch. Before cares, before worries, before agendas and responsibilities...there was a girl...a little girl with pigtails. She swung on monkey-bars, skipped and cartwheeled and played. Somehow I’d left her behind. I want to re-attach to her, and become her in her childhood. In her book Present Over Perfect, Shauna Niequist wrote, “There’s something, I’m sure, about going back to the places you used to go to find the self you used to be.” So there I go...one step back...two steps back.
The journey to “back when” is a bit unnerving, because It’s an unfamiliar path. Seeing her in my mind-pictures, is a bit like looking through a cloudy window. I think I recognize her, but at the same time, she’s a stranger. It would be easy to chalk it up to vague memory and refocus on right now, but I find myself staring a little longer, watching a scene unfold like an old movie. There she is...dancing and spinning, holding her daddy’s hand and walking along the beach. The purity of her smile reveals something...an untainted confidence, the kind of believing that feels like a second skin.
I am a quiet observer looking across the chasm of time, feeling the distance between “today” and “before”. That’s where she lives...in a house called Before. She invites me into that lovely place...her little voice is irresistible...“Walk backwards! Walk backwards!” and I do.
I see her there, with her first tiny piano, in the corner of the little dining room, singing her heart out and pounding the keys with sweet abandon. I realize that she’s never had an inclination to compare herself with someone else. She likes herself just fine. The world hasn’t reached her with the notion that she’s not enough, that she needs to worry, that she must compete. She lives delightfully contented...happy just to be her daddy’s girl. She lives unafraid, and certain that
she is loved.
She’s singing my memories back to life. Her voice sounds a bit like my own. It gets louder with every step backward. I like visiting this little girl. I must reacquaint myself with her. Where exactly did she go?
Have you ever thought about walking backwards? The past can be a dangerous, wasteful place, I know. There are old wounds, ugly scars that it seems would be better left unvisited, or, at best, visited with a careful, gentle guide. We all have a limited amount of energy. Why not spend it on the more pleasant prospect of forward motion? It’s just that so much of the human experience, the small and precious span of our time on this planet, is spent grasping, striving and forcing, often all in the name of progress. This gentle blast from my past has created in me a new and wonder-laden curiosity to discover more...more about the real me, the person God created for giving, loving, and dreaming...dare I say, for joy.
In her book Invitation to Solitude and Silence, author Ruth Haley Barton calls us with this: “The aim of our search for guidance is not merely to improve our own life; it is to enhance our participation in God’s work in ways that are congruent with our truest self in God.” And that’s the heart of it; that all this rambling down an overgrown path might bring us to an extraordinary meeting place with our true self. And that is a valuable meeting indeed, to examine the purest places in ourselves. Purity, in a sense, is like having nothing to lose, and walking backwards can connect us to a time when we truly had nothing to lose. What a freedom!
And what I want to do...what I purpose to do, is to take the hold of that little pig-tailed girl and carry her laughing right into the future, into my future. This will be my transformation. I don’t want to lose her again. In fact, I aim to spend much more time with her. It will require a bit of a departure from the beaten path ahead, and it may seem a foolish exercise to some; but I’ve just got to go. I’ve just got to take off on a walk backwards.
“Because children have abounding vitality, because they are in spirit fierce and free,
therefore they want things repeated and unchanged. They always say, “Do it again”;
and the grown-up person does it again until he is nearly dead. For grown-up people
are not strong enough to exult in monotony. But perhaps God is strong enough
to exult in monotony. It is possible that God says every morning, “Do it again” to the sun; and every evening, “Do it again” to the moon. It may not be automatic necessity that makes all daisies alike; it may be that God makes every daisy separately, but has never got tired of making them. It may be that He has the eternal appetite of infancy; for we have sinned and grown old, and our Father is younger than we.”
G.K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy
Comentarios