Look Before You Leap, It's the Friday Five!

From Revgals:

It's Leap Day!! Whether you're one of the special few who have a birthday only once every four years, or simply confused by the extra day on the calendar, everyone is welcome to join in and play our Leap Year Friday Five.

Tell us about a time you:

1. Leapt before looked Oh yes, I HAVE leapt before I looked and regretted every bit of it. But it isn’t something that I would put on my blog!

2. Leapt to a conclusion I have leapt to conclusions. In fact I do it rather regularly. So I have a good bit of practice of having to go back and retrace my steps. In fact leaping to conclusions has been one of my better characteristics—it is absolutely necessary for someone who is big on the Intuitive part of the Meyers-Briggs scale. Going through all the step-by-step parts of decision-making is just too plebian for Intuitive thinkers! It makes for creative moments for Intuitives. It also makes for many mistakes. Ah, the cost of being an Intuitive.

3. Took a Leap of Faith When I first came to grapple with faith in my mid twenties, I had to make a decision to believe or not believe. There had been little religious training in my family. In undergraduate school I studied history from the perspective of historical thought (philosophy). I understood that scientific thought and theological thought were much of the same thing—trusting in a process outside of one’s self. As I began to wrestle with the issues of faith, I wasn’t really aware of God’s action, per se. I knew that I needed to believe that there WAS a God. I chose to believe that there was a God. It was then that I began to experience God in Christ. It sounds so mundane—and there was a certain sense of my own volition about it. It was only after that decision that I was able to embrace God, I think. And after that decision I was aware of God’s action and gift that faith was.
This part of the reason why I don’t demand that people have a “born again” experience of God: some folks have always known that there is a God. They must come to a place in their faith where they can trust in God, but many people don’t remember how God saved them. For me, it wasn’t a matter of having to LEAP as much as being willing to construct for myself a reality that went against much of what I had been brought up to understand. It was a matter of choosing God rather than not having faith.

4. Took a literal Leap I remember vividly starting to leap down from a 3ft high strut of a pier at a lake in Mexico when I was doing missionary work there. I missed the jump and broke my hip at the age of 27. It ended my missionary aspirations. But it did point me in the direction that I have followed ever since.


5. And finally, what might you be faced with leaping in the coming year? Since I am still in the “honeymoon” of a new parish, I know that this coming year will be moving from honeymoon to reality. This is not so much a leap as it is trying to avoid potholes! I may have to leap—make some definite reversal or jump forward. I know I have to introduce the new hymnal to the parish—a task I rank right up there with pulling teeth. But it must be done