Stability or Balance?

Friday 11/17/2017 6:08 AM

I read an excerpt from Living with Contradiction, by Esther de Waal, today. “What I am looking for is some sort of balance in my life – a balance ‘so delicate, so risky, so creative’, as Maria Boulding puts it, that she likens it to a bird in flight, a dancer in motion.”

I’m looking for balance in my life too, but I think I don’t think it’s the same kind of balance she is looking for. My kind of balance could better be described by the word stability. I have a plastic bird in my office that has a center of mass at the tip of its beak. It balances on its beak on a small pedestal and teeters, swaying with every passing waft of air but never falling off the pedestal. That feeling like you might fall at any minute is not one that I appreciate. I like to have both feet on the ground, standing firmly planted so nothing moves me.

The problem with stability is that when the ground shifts underneath, the stable structure can topple and fall, evidenced by buildings during an earthquake. The balancing bird would remain on its pedestal while swaying with the motion of the ground.

I desire stability. God knows that balance is better for me. Life can be chaotic and extremely unstable. When I live with balance I will never fall. I’ll simply bob and sway in the chaos.