My knees were shaking. Although I
was standing on warm rock, I felt the wind could have pushed me over the edge.
In the distance, red mesas and crooked towers of stone stood over the Arizonan
desert. Twenty feet below, the bright river was foaming and hungry.
“Do we go head first?” I said.
“No, you’ll want to pencil it.” Dustin held out two fingers pushed together
pointing down.
We counted from three and jumped.
Like a pencil, I thought.
My feet smacked blue, and I plunged into the shadows of the Colorado River, the
waters surging around me, first cold and then warm. I felt like Jonah must have
felt just before being hurled out of the great fish. I pushed my arms down and
surfaced, we made some kind of sound like laughter, and the wind was strong
against our faces.
* * *
Eleven years ago, I began attending a Quaker
graduate school. I hardly knew anything about Quakerism before I studied there;
my main reason for going was that they offered a unique program in writing as a
form of Christian ministry. However, it was fascinating to learn about Quaker
theology and especially how this played out in their worship.
Quakers believe the light of God shines in all people, and if we listen with
discernment, we can open ourselves to hear God’s voice. Quakers listen together
through a form of worship called “unprogrammed” or “waiting worship,” in which
a gathering of people sits in silence, eyes closed, waiting for the Spirit.
When someone believes God is giving them a message for the group, they are
encouraged to stand and speak.
During my first semester, when I began sitting in waiting worship, memories of
jumping into the Colorado River would sometimes come to me. Only now, the river
I was looking into during worship was darkness and silence.
Although I tried listening for God’s voice, I would often wonder what God
sounded like. For instance, how could I distinguish between God’s words and my
own thoughts? Later that semester, I read a story that helped. It’s about when
the prophet Elijah heard God’s voice:
Then a great and powerful wind tore the mountains
apart and shattered the rocks before the LORD, but the LORD was not in the
wind. After the wind there was an earthquake, but the LORD was not in the
earthquake. After the earthquake came a fire, but the LORD was not in the fire.
And after the fire came a gentle whisper. When Elijah heard it, he pulled his
cloak over his face and went out and stood at the mouth of the cave. (1 Kings 19:11–13, NIV)
Once during waiting worship, I thought I heard God
speak. A paraphrase of a verse from Psalm 62 swirled in my mind: “One thing God
has spoken, two things have I heard: That you, O Lord, are strong, and that
you, O Lord, are loving.”
Is this God? I wondered. Should I stand and speak this?
In the midst of my inner wrestling, someone walked out of the room – and the prompting left me. I felt like Jonah might have felt when he was swallowed by the great fish.
* * *
In the eleven years since then, I’ve participated
in other forms of worship. I now worship regularly among Anglican
and Eastern Orthodox congregations. I’m thankful for what I experienced among
Quakers of contemplation and silence – and I no longer have flashbacks in the
middle of services of cliff jumping into rivers.
But if I did, I imagine I would recall the events surrounding the second time I
ever cliff jumped.
It was the summer after visiting the Colorado River. I was in Kansas
celebrating a wedding, and for the bachelor party, about eleven of us drove to
Two Buttes, Colorado, where apparently we were going to jump off a cliff.
“There’s different ledges,” said Erik as he drove a carful of us between corn
fields into the sunset. “You can jump it from thirty feet, forty feet, or even
sixty feet. But we’ll only jump from forty feet.”
Someone asked about the possibility of rocks.
“An underwater current connects the lagoon to the reservoir, so there’s no
bottom,” Erik said.
Tall trees loomed over the campground. At the end, shadowed by cliffs, black
ripples shimmered beneath a large moon.
One by one, the guys swam to the other side, where they heaved themselves onto
a bank, climbed a cliff, and jumped into the darkness. I couldn’t see them; I
could only hear feet scraping dirt, followed by silence, and then a deep sploosh.
Afterward they yelped to let us know they made it.
Along with a few others, I didn’t jump the cliff that night (I did the next
morning, though). One guy’s ankle was sprained, making it risky. Another said, “There’s
no way I’m jumping off that.”
As Quakers say, Friend spoke my mind.
When we returned to the campground, Erik invited us to climb the nearby Two
Buttes. We all drove a few miles away and parked beside a field of shrubs and
rocks, above which stood the silhouette of two stony, sandy pyramids joined
together. We hiked around yucca plants and clambered over boulders all awash in
moonlight.
When we reached the top, some guys shouted. The land stretched before us like
the ocean. We could barely see our cars parked below, beside the wiry road.
Beyond them, red lights from electricity pylons pulsed.
Up there, the wind was almost as strong as water. Our conversations soon died
down as we each found a spot to rest. At one point, I stood with my arms out
and leaned into the wind. Then for a few moments, we sat and stood, facing the
moon and wind in silence.
