In Jerry Maguire, Jerry has just lost his job. After trying frantically to save his client list, he succeeds in saving just one, and walks out into the main office a dejected man. The office grows quiet. Everyone stops talking. All that extraneous office noise, the phones, the copy machine, the tap taps on the keyboards, stops.
Jerry looks at everyone, smiles wryly and says, “Don’t worry, I’m not going to do what you all think I’m going to do, which is FLIP OUT!”
I’ve been feeling an awful lot like Jerry these days. Fortunately I still have my job, but I do feel sometimes mere seconds from meltdown. That’s what happens when you go nearly a month without air conditioning in the summer in Florida.
But as horrible as the last few weeks have been, they haven’t been the worst weeks of my life. They rank, but they’re not the worst.
Five years ago, I developed vertigo. What began as an initial uncontrollable spin, tapered off into a constant feeling of living on a boat at high seas. I felt like someone in constant motion even when I was sitting still. Like a ship missing a stabilizer, I listed as I walked. Making eye contact with anyone required too much energy. And most disturbingly, I couldn’t read.
I started copying a coping mechanism my poorest readers use in the classroom. I became a fake reader. I stared at the open book and then every few minutes turned the page. But I wasn’t reading a thing.
I lived my life in five minute increments. Just get through the next five minutes. And then when those were through, get through the next five and so on and so on.
Living life five minutes at a time.
It was a horrible way to live.
Eventually I received physical therapy to treat my vertigo. And then instead of living my life five minutes at a time, I could live it by the hour and then by the day.
When we are under stress, (and I’ve written this before) our vision narrows. In the worst cases we literally develop tunnel vision. Our brains constrict our lives down to the smallest possible thing we can handle. When I had vertigo that was five minutes.
But I lived in those minutes. I went to work. I taught. I got up every morning and ate breakfast. I came home at night, ate dinner and slept. I functioned within those minutes. I kept going even when I was terrified and sick.
Today’s gospel reading is from Matthew 14:22-33. It is my favorite chapter these days. Peter steps off the boat to walk on the water out to Jesus. At some point he becomes frightened though and begins to sink.
I keep wondering what would have happened had he kept going even though he was afraid. Is fear alone enough to make us sink or can we be afraid and still have the faith to walk on water?
That is what I tell myself these days. No matter how tired I am, no matter how hard it is to continue to keep up with all the craziness and responsibilities of life, no matter how afraid I am, I know I can’t stop. I know I have to keep putting one foot in front of the other, because if I do stop, I might not be able to get started again.
However there is some comfort to be had in the tale of Peter. When he started to sink, he called out to Jesus to save him and Jesus “immediately reached out his hand and caught him.”
That word there—it’s immediately.
Jesus didn’t run to Peter. He didn’t wait to see what would happen next. Peter called out to him and “immediately” he was there. There was no wait time.
Jesus save me.
Three simple words.
