I was at the high altar when I took a tumble the other morning. Fortunately, I was by myself, so my embarrassment was minimal as there was no one to guffaw at my ineptitude. It all happened very quickly and it was certainly not something that I had written in my diary. It was something that I was not proud of, nor was I ready to tell the world about it.
So who to tell? Someone who would understand, someone who would know what it is like to suddenly find one's self where one did not intend to be. Someone who also had fallen. They would know how to listen, what to say and how to say it.
It also occurred to me that compassionate, empathetic people are the ones I instinctively turn to when I have had other ‘falls’. I’m cheerily minding my own business at the altar, thinking I am ‘Georgie Porgy, What a good boy am I’ and instantly I’m at the bottom of the heap feeling foolish and sore. Who to turn to…?
Someone who has also floundered. Someone who has been bumped and knows the herculean oomph that it takes to get up again. Don’t give me a squeaky clean, precious, glib, pious, gloating, holier than thou, do gooder oozing with platitudes.
Give me please, someone who is a little grubby round the edges. Someone who is besmirched, a bit chipped and flawed. Someone who will reach out a pierced and mucky hand to help me up. Someone who will say “Come on friend .. we’ve got work to do”.
Someone who knows that there is only one direction from the moral high ground and that is headlong downwards. None can afford to stand there, for all have tumbled, stumbled and been crumpled. I rejoice that the Master delighted in tax collectors and prostitutes and had great dinner parties with them.