A Case of Mistaken Identity

A colleague of mine tells a story from their youth, so if you like it and find it helpful, any credit must go to them. Any sulkiness should be directed straight back to me for shamelessly stealing it.

Once upon a time, a young lad was climbing down long ladders in the opal mines. All of sudden he finds that he is ‘frozen’ and unable to move his feet. He’s just there paralysed by fear, vertigo, or whatever the correct phrase is.

The local wizened, weathered gentleman at the bottom is waiting patiently and after a while twigs to what has happened. Our local hero discreetly and sensitively rescues my colleague. Further, the saviour never said anything about this (mis)adventure to anyone. Ever!?

My colleague made the point that much of what clergy and others do, is like that. We discreetly serve others, free them to get on with things and take the knowledge of the incident with us in our coffin.

Now I had always assumed that I was the rescuer in the story. Of course I was the one who helped others and hopefully kept my mouth shut.

But notice please that there are actually two people in the story. There is also the one who needed rescuing. You know where this is going right?

I’ll bet a bottle of my finest that most of the time I have been the person who needs rescuing rather than the one who rescues.

There must have been incalculable times when I was paralysed by indecision, frozen by my own fear and flummoxed by the circumstances in which I found myself. Unable to go back, impossible to move forward.

It took me far too long to learn that the first step to mobility is actually to say just one word. ‘Help’.