I drive up to Hillsboro to St. Matthew’s to do a wedding for a student.
I’m such a pro. I know what I’m doing.
The problem is the ambo at St. Matthew’s is elevated—you have to walk up two steps—and when I went to proclaim the gospel I forgot about this. There I was, standing in front of several hundred people, and when I turned around, not thinking, I fell off the steps. I had to grab the edge to keep from hitting my chin, and even then I was looking up, at my feet, in the air. It’s a miracle I didn’t hurt myself.
I got up and the wedding went on. Everything happened anyway.
Driving home I started to laugh. Up the mountain and down into the valley. I kept thinking of our silly pretentions, our false pride. I kept thinking how beautiful the world was, the winter trees and the sky. I kept thinking how I’ll look on America’s Funniest Home Videos: there one second, gone the next.
Maybe in a way that’s my vocation, and yours, too: to fall and to keep falling.
from Light When It Comes (Eerdmans 2016)