Download - The Perfect Wisdom Web

Be Not Afraid Accidentsmountain climber. Together they lowered a rope andhauled me back up to the path.My friends were ecstatic. Someone lit a joint, and wetook stock of what had happened. I’d stumbled off thecliff and fallen onto a ledge about three feet wide – theonly one of its kind along a mile-long stretch of thegorge. Had I fallen anywhere else, I never would havesurvived. As it was, I had landed flat on my back, onmoss, and I didn’t have a single scratch or bruise.Back at the dorms, we partied up a storm. Yet as welaughed I caught a classmate staring at me as if I weresome ghost returned from the dead. I guess I felt likeone. I had cheated death, but only by inches.Still, my fall had little, if any, effect on me. Someoneelse might have been shattered by it, or awakened to thepreciousness of life. But I didn’t let myself be fazed inthe least. Instead, I partied with fresh abandon.Looking back, I see now that by mocking the incidentin this way, I avoided its impact and missed a rareopportunity to examine my life – its meaning, itsdirection, its purpose. Yet the fact is that my worldviewat the time was such that I was incapable of absorbingany deeper message from it. It was only many yearslater – after a conversion, actually – that I was able toreally think about what had happened and to appreciateits gravity. The protection I experienced that night awesme.8