On Sunday, March 16th, the sermon was from Psalm 27, where the psalmist expresses trust in the Lord as our “light and our salvation” (v. 1). The writer of Hebrews defines what this trust looks like: “Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see.  

A flyer must fly, and a catcher must catch, and the flyer must trust, with outstretched arms, that his catcher will be there for him. – Henri Nouwen, An excerpt from Nouwen’s Our Greatest Gift.

_{Sources used for this week’s article: (https://wp.henrinouwen.org/?p=2008 and https://healthyspirituality.org/henri-nouwens-story-about-the-flyer-and-the-catcher/)} 

To illustrate the trust of the psalmist, David, I shared a story from Henri Nouwen, one of my favorite writers. A Dutch-born Catholic priest, professor, psychologist and prolific writer in the area of Christian spirituality, Nouwen taught psychology at the University of Notre Dame and pastoral theology at the Divinity Schools of Yale and Harvard before leaving academia to become the pastor at L’Arche Daybreak in Toronto, where he devoted the rest of his life to serving people with severe physical and intellectual disabilities. (See https://henrinouwen.org/about/)  

Several years before his unexpected death in 1996, he had become enamored with a family of trapeze artists called “The Flying Rodleighs” who performed in the German circus Simoneit-Barum. Nouwen wrote about the circus coming to Freiburg and how his friends Franz and Reny invited his father and him to see the show: “I will never forget how enraptured I became when I first saw the Rodleighs move through the air, flying and catching as elegant dancers.” 

The next day, Nouwen returned to the circus to see them again and introduced himself to them as one of their great fans. He said, “They invited me to attend their practice sessions, gave me free tickets, asked me to dinner, and suggested I travel with them for a week in the near future.  I did, and we became good friends.” 

One day, [Nouwen] was sitting with Rodleigh, the leader, talking about flying. Rodleigh said, “As a flyer, I must have complete trust in my catcher.  The public might think that I am the great star of the trapeze, but the real star is Joe, my catcher. He has to be there for me with split-second precision and grab me out of the air as I come to him in the long jump.” 

“How does it work?” Nouwen asked. 

“The secret,” Rodleigh said, “is that the flyer does nothing and the catcher does everything. When I fly to Joe, I have simply to stretch out my arms and hands and wait for him to catch me and pull me safely over the apron behind the catchbar.” “You do nothing!” Nouwen said. 

“Nothing,” Rodleigh repeated. “The worst thing the flyer can do is to try to catch the catcher. I am not supposed to catch Joe. It’s Joe’s task to catch me. If I grabbed Joe’s wrists, I might break them, or he might break mine, and that would be the end for both of us. A flyer must fly, and a catcher must catch, and the flyer must trust, with outstretched arms, that his catcher will be there for him.’ 

Nouwen wrote, “When Rodleigh said this with so much conviction, the words of Jesus flashed through my mind: ‘Father into your hands I commend my Spirit.’ Dying is trusting in the catcher. To care for the dying is to say, ‘Don’t be afraid. Remember that you are the beloved child of God. He will be there when you make your long jump. Don’t try to grab him; he will grab you. Just stretch out your arms and hands and trust, trust, trust.’” 

As we journey through this Lenten season, and through this life, let us reflect on the words of Psalm 27 and on the words of Jesus, who said, “Don’t let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God, and trust in me.” (John 14:1, NCV)  

May our prayer be to fear not, to let go, and simply trust the Catcher. 

God’s blessings,