nerve

When I first started skiing at age 5, I remember having only one great concern, how fast could I get from the top of the slope to the bottom and back up again. Repeat. Getting to the bottom of the short slope was a straightforward, two-step process, point ski tips in a downward direction and push off. Only other skiers or natural obstacles hindered me.

I can never remember a time when I did not know how to ski. This may be partly due to the fact that I never once believed I did not know how to ski. My mother fondly recalls her exasperation with this attitude. She would confer with my Austrian ski instructor at the end of our day on the slopes of Sharktooth, and she would look quizically at my mom and say “Ellen, who?”

Why go to all the trouble of lessons when you already know what you’re doing? Of course, this reckless attitude meant many painful faceplants and chaotic dispersions of my gear on the snow and once plowing head-on into Ulli, my ski instructor, and her current charge. I took them both out and vaguely remember feeling sheepish and listening to some sort of chastisement from Ulli. But, I say vaguely. All manner of negative outcome seemed to have little or no effect. I was undeterred.

I had a load of nerve in those days, misguided though it may have been, I had it. And now, I am asking myself these days – Nerve, where have you got to? Writing blogs and taking the risk to speak my mind, and thinking about being creative again, picking up my paints, restringing my guitar – dear, Lord it makes my knees wobbly. Am I up to this? And for what? Do I really believe the creative process matters...regardless of results?

And I keep looking at Jesus. Nerve of another caliber is He. I am blown away. A Creator of universes who unwaveringly faced the destruction of his earthly body and reputation, pain and humiliation heightened by the reality of who He is/was. My diminutive battles to find my nerve again pale in comparison, but they take on more meaning in the light of Him. To become is to be ever more conformed to His image. Being fashioned into His likeness, as I remember – like waking from a dream remember – who I am, who I was made to be, means fire will touch me. To burn away perverse self-protectiveness and timidity and the vacuous lies that keep me from being

united with him in his death and resurrection.