Despite his portly bearing, Baxter is quite the acrobat. He can still negotiate window sills and shelves with ease. He can walk the rim of his litter box with alacrity. He likes to sit on the edge of the bathtub, and he will even hold a pose on the back of a dining room chair for a few moments--if he thinks I’m not looking at his trespass onto forbidden territory. Cats have an amazing sense of balance. Between their agility and ability to adjust their body weight quickly, they are able to get to where they want to be no matter the obstacles or the limited access.
Although we may not be as versatile as cats, we too have a remarkable ability to balance our body weight against gravity. Once we get the hang of standing and walking on two legs, there is no stopping us. Did you ever watch a two year old set loose on his or her own? It’s usually nonstop motion into everything. Steps, cabinets, decks and balconies, they all are fair game for the young one who has discovered his or her knack for balancing his or her body on two feet. Once we have learned how, we take our sense of balance for granted. We just get up and go, not thinking twice about what it takes to stay upright.
But then something happens. We injure our back. We develop vertigo. We lose the strength in our legs. We can no longer stand upright without holding onto something, and we can only move forward slowly and cautiously. We’re afraid of falling now, and so we begin to move less, go to fewer places, stay put to stay safe. Losing our sense of balance has many consequences for our way of life.
The same holds for our spiritual lives as well. We need to have balance to keep moving and feeling secure, and sometimes we lose this balance and don’t notice it. Life gets busy, and soon we are consumed with work or activities. An elderly parent or spouse becomes ill, and all the focus is on caring for them. A divorce happens or an addiction is uncovered, and now everything falls out of whack. At times like these, we can get trapped into limping through our days not thinking about how we are doing and what we need to change to make things better. We are hurting so much that we can’t think straight. Our feelings go numb, but our nerves are on edge. We sense the pressure building in our souls, but we don’t know what to do about it.
Balance is a key to the holy life. Time for prayer, work, enrichment, recreation; time to develop the mind and get in touch with the heart; time for physical and spiritual exercise; time to eat well, sleep well; time to be alone and time to enjoy others’ company; time for serious pursuits and conversations, and time for fun and frivolous banter. Like the Book of Ecclesiastes teaches, “There is an appointed time for everything . . . under the heavens.” If we fail to walk through all these times of our lives, we grow narrow, lethargic and rigid. We don’t allow life to keep us limber so that we can move through our time on earth gracefully rather than grudgingly. We need to ask ourselves: what’s missing from my life to keep it in balance? There is where God is calling you to respond.
Cats walk upright on the narrowest ledges because they have a wonderful sense of balance. We can learn from them. We can walk in faith through the toughest of times, if we keep our sense of balance by using all that God gives us.
