On "Falling Upward"

Why call this blog "Falling Upward"? Francis, a good friend, told me the other day that it reminded him of Shel Silverstein's whimsical "Falling Up". I'd never read that poem, so I looked it up. Here it is:

I tripped on my shoelace
And I fell up-
Up to the roof tops
Up past the tree tops
Up over the mountains
Up where the colors
Blend into the sounds
But it go me so dizzy
When I looked around
I got sick to my stomach
And I threw down.


Actually, I had been thinking about the implications of the Incarnation--how God's descent into human form means that everything human and all creation are taken up into the divine embrace. Even our "falling" has become a "happy fault" that can bring us back to the foundation of all things, the Hidden Ground of Love which supports and sustains all. So I guess the title of this blog for me hints at a number of things: incarnation, the immanence of grace in creation, the mercy of God, providence.

Something of this is expressed in  the poem "The Avowal" by Denise Levertov:

As swimmers dare
to lie face to the sky
and water bears them,
as hawks rest upon air
and air sustains them,
so would I learn to attain
freefall, and float
into Creator Spirit’s deep embrace,
knowing no effort earns
that all-surrounding grace.

If all is grace then even (and perhaps especially!) our falls are a "falling upward."