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Today’s Blog Post
Funambulist and Funambulism and the Minister
In 66 years of living I have never encountered this word until this past week. It has been fun using it.
I now have words to describe my friend Winston as he walks with great effort. I now have words to describe me too.
Winston has said to me as he holds on tight to me or his wife, “This is not Fun!” and chooses his steps carefully. I am not making light of his condition of an inner ear problem, but does this ever describe him well. Winston is on a continuous Funambulism. He is a Funambulist!
Now Winston is FUN to be with. You just never know what will come out of his thinking at times. He produces more “groaners” than any person I have ever met… one liners that make his audience groan… and roar with laughter. He always has an audience too.
In a way that is amazing for Winston in that his balance is so greatly affected with this problem that many times he feels a constant motion sickness. Most people would quit – but not Winston… his humour just keeps on going! Winston you are my amazing Funambulist Friend!
My imagination first caught the word and its fullest meaning as I read of Charles Blondin, or Jean François Gravelet-Blondin. I discovered him as I continue to discover more about Niagara Falls.
Blondin had a 1000 foot Manila Rope stretched across the Niagara Gorge. The rope was 3 inches in diameter. It was also supported by a number of other ropes that anchored it at various intervals to lessen the sway from what I read.
3 inch manila ropes were the kind that ships were moored beside docks. They were heavy and big.
A 1000 foot long rope must have weighed thousands of pounds and to stretch it across the 1000 foot distance would be no small feat to say the least.
The feat was actaully recorded as 1100 feet (335 m) long, 3¼ inches in diameter, 160 feet (50 m) above the water.
Charles Blondin had begun this career of entertaining people while dancing on a rope when he was about 5 years old. His story is a fascinating one to say the least.
He was a showman to say the least. He entertained people and knew how to get a crowd’s attention.
He would dress in tights, or a gorilla outfit, or some other weird thing to get the attention of his admiring audience that he was trying to impress.
However when I read the accounts of his walking over the Niagara Gorge it was said that most of the audience gathered to see if he would fall. They held their breath as he did all kinds of stunts on the rope above the boiling/churning water below.
One man watching with his theatre glasses (small binoculars) was asked if he would loan his glasses to a person nearby. He flatly refused saying that he had travelled each week from Detroit to watch when this man would fall and there was no way he would give them up for even a few seconds.
That was the way it was for most of the audience. They gathered at the precipice to see the man walk in this rope… to be there when he fell… and if he did he would most certainly die in the turbulent waters below. How exciting!
Funambulist love to entertain. But to do so they must have two things, a tight rope between two points and an audience.
Now I know that my friend Winston doesn’t have to use a rope (or at least doesn’t have a rope) to do this… but he always has an audience.
On the side… most of us take for granted the magic we have within us to just stand up straight and be able to walk up right without effort. We have no idea how much of an effort folk like Winston have to use just to get to church on Sunday, to go shopping or to look after his grandkids – when everything is moving.
Society must be involved in order for the Blondins of this world to succeed.
The year that Blondin was doing his thing over Niagara was 1859. It would never happen in 2010 with all of the laws that protect us from hurting ourselves… and making a spectacle of a place like Niagara Falls.
Today it is different. We now have the Ultimate Fighters that beat on each other until they pass out, are knocked out, ask for the other guy to stop, or simply die. People pay huge money to watch this happen.
But if that is too wild, they also pay good money to watch Prize Fighters beat on each other, professional wrestlers purposefully hurt one another as the crowd screams for blood.
We are not like the folk that gathered at the Niagara Gorge to see Blondin fall to his death. We are more civilized by far.
Now there are times that I feel like a Blondin when I walk into church to lead a worship service. Dozens watch closely to see if I will fall to my death by missing something.
One minister told me he was quitting because of the critics that he had. He could do nothing right. He messed up so often that he was feeling useless and had enough.
I encouraged him to stay on. After all people were coming regularly and never missing a beat. They watched his every action to see if he would fall… but they also put something in the offering plate each week too.
Come to think of it Winston… I am kind of a Funambulist as well… in fact I think every minister is. Too funny!
~ Murray Lincoln ~
http://www.murraylincoln.com/
Source:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Funambulist
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Blondin
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1 comment:
Murray, I wonder if we've been involved in something that finds almost no equal in our society.
Hollywood doesn't require the greatest actors to wow the crowd every week and even they are helped by an entire entourage of helpers and supporting actors.
Educators are helped by getting a fresh batch of students every term. They don't have to create new material and they get to use the same stories over and over.
Students actually have the benefit of actually picking and choosing their courses or in my case I actually chose some courses based on who would be teaching it.
But then Jesus comes along and creates a church model that requires lots of devotion being given to one person for an extended period of time that is not seen anywhere else in society. And even then he only makes a 3 year attempt at this kind of devotion.
He also puts a 10% admission fee on their devotion to the minister and the meeting facility. There really is nothing else to compare this kind of activity to on the face of the earth except of course in other religious models.
It certainly has created an incredibly caring and supportive group of people with ministers being able to take the lead in society, all the while living off of the charity of others.
The fact that this goes on generation after generation and great men aspire to take the lead in this model is perhaps as miraculous as the resurrection itself.
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