Juggling

Catherine

I was spending time with my fellow blogger, his wife, family and friends a few weeks ago, somehow we got onto the topic of juggling, and attempting to do it. Thankfully it just so happened that I had taken a bag of satsumas round, so armed with oranges, the juggling lesson began. You had to be there to fully grasp the beauty of watching the lesson. It began with some very tentative throwing, and just 2 satsumas each, and ended with the smell of juiced oranges, and some people juggling 3 oranges! It was fun, I recommend it for all your family gatherings over Christmas!

David

I've had a set of juggling balls for years. Every now and then I have picked them up to have another go, for which read, miserable attempt! Got very frustrating, I consider myself intelligent and competent (you are allowed to comment)  yet no matter how hard I tried, no matter how many times the technique was explained, I couldn't do it. Then Catherine saw them one day, grabbed them and casually started to juggle... gggrrrr.

Catherine

Turns out that the key to learning to juggle is not about technique or an inherent ability to throw and catch. What you first have to learn to do is drop stuff. You have to get the rhythm of throwing and if you're concentrating on trying to catch as well, most people will never make it. In order to succeed in juggling you have to be willing to deliberately choose to fail!

David

'Drop  them' she said. Mad woman, I'm supposed to be juggling, that involves catching, what do you mean 'drop them'. But regular readers will know that I've come to trust Catherine's seemingly odd advice! I had to stop thinking 'I need to catch everything, I need to do it all at once, to do it perfectly'. I had to learn not to hold onto things tightly! The first step was getting the oranges in the air in a rhythm which would mean they could be caught. But in order to get that right, I had to consciously allow them to splat on the ground the first few times! Fortunately small children a) think it's funny and b) don't mind eating them later! 

Catherine

Deliberately throwing them with no intent of catching them is the secret to getting the rhythm.  Guess we thought this was a bit of a life lesson. So often we seem to believe that God insists on immediate perfection. It limits risk taking, but more importantly it might just be like juggling. God knows that there are some things we will never get right unless we first let go, unless we step out, confident that some of it will go splat on the ground. By feeling the need to do it all perfectly, to get it all done in one step, people ended up being paralysed and not throwing some of the balls. They never risked dropping anything, but they never risked succeeding in juggling either.

Maybe the path to Kingdom building is strewn with splatted satsumas.