fall on me

i woke up to a bright white morning... a thick layer of snow was sticking to nearly everything (or not sticking in the case of the clumps of snow that grew too heavy for its resting place on high tree branches, falling on unsuspecting pedestrians below--an occurrence i have experienced 4 times in the last 24 hours.
the snow on the ground is just as big a threat as the snow in the trees.
my first class of the day got canceled... always a bonus, especially on mondays. on the way to my second (and last) class of the day, i was admiring the enormous amounts of fresh snow when i heard the scuffling of panicking feet struggling to find some traction on the icy ground. that's when i felt a hand grab my hood and yank down out of the desperate need for stabilization. luckily, i was fairly balanced and didn't go down with this individual that was a complete stranger to me.

you know the song "lean on me?" great song... i love it.
but looking at the song for a loose metaphor to describe a true and strong friendship--i think it falls short. i think "falling" is a more appropriate term.
i mean, "leaning" works, but i'd argue that only a true friend would say, "go ahead, fall on me." and honestly, think about it...
where does leaning occur in our lives?

we lean on walls casually to look cool, lean on trees when answering natures call in the woods, lean on invisible tables (well, mimes do), and lean back in our chair in 5th grade while the teacher isn't looking.
leaning only surrenders to partial dependency. "un-leaning" is fairly easy. yes, like i said, it's a good metaphor... i just think there is more to it.

think about those leaning examples again.

what if, while in the act of leaning, all of your muscles just suddenly stopped working and you lost all capability to hold yourself up (which is, in essence, what falling is considered)? where would you be? you'd be on the ground at the foot of the wall, sitting in your own "stuff" at the base of the tree in the woods, sprawled out on the floor in the middle of an open space looking like an idiot for falling for no apparent (to the non-mime eye) reason, or on the classroom floor with your head split open and your teacher giving you detention.

leaning can only do so much for us. what is supposed to support us when our muscles stop working, when we just can't manage to support ourselves? what about when we can't grab hold of anything and start to fall? who are you willing to completely depend on? fall on?

i think there is a two-fold answer to that.

the first is the obvious one, the sunday school answer: God. in fact, i'd say that God asks us to fall in his arms. Using God as a balance-keeping crutch rather than a personal piggy-back transport reveals a life that isn't completely dependent on Him.
But what about when, for one reason or another, we don't see God as an option?

That's where your true friends, your community, come in to the picture. they are the ones with the hoods that we can grab when we slip and start to fall. they are the stable ice skaters in your group that will skate next to you as you give ice skating a try... they will stay by you, knowing full well that you will begin to fall and grab hold of their arm... you know that you can reach out for their arm when you start to fall... and you know that they'll keep you up because they are so solid. sure, sometimes both fall, but even so... if they do go down with you, they'll help you up.

like i said--God is ready and willing to be that support. i think that the support sometimes comes in the form of the friends and community that He puts in our lives because He knows that we'll need that.

*side note* i was looking at how the things in life i like a lot are communicating and community... so i was about to say, i think i am just very fond of anything that has the root "communi" in it... but then i realized that there was this one word: communism. ya, not so supportive of that one. communion is pretty cool though.
anyway.

so, ya. just some stuff i feel pretty strongly about. i am so thankful for those people in my life that i can "fall on," and i can only hope that i can be someone that they can "fall on." life would be ridiculously tough if that kind of support didn't exist.