Defying Gravity

So here I am, officially in a zone I never wanted to join, the “worry about falling” club. You know the one? Where every step becomes a calculation, every uneven sidewalk a potential hazard?

In the past year, my bum knee has betrayed me twice. Same pattern both times: knee refuses to extend fully, gravity wins, and down I go. It’s humbling, really, how something as simple as walking can suddenly feel like a high-stakes game.

But isn’t that just like life? The way it pulls us down both physically and spiritually when we least expect it?

While I know exactly what to do for my knee—physical therapy, exercises, the whole nine yards—I’ve been wrestling with a bigger question: What about the spiritual dimension of falling? How do we rehabilitate a soul that’s forgotten how to stay upright?

The Slow Work of Silence

My recent experiment with silence and solitude has taught me something I should have known by now: God’s work in us isn’t immediate or flashy. It’s cumulative like drops of water eventually carving out canyons.

The most meaningful shifts in my character have unfolded so slowly that I barely noticed them. But others have. Friends tell me I seem more approachable lately and more open. Where there might once have been what one person kindly called “intimidating intensity,” there’s apparently now a gentler presence.

How did that happen? I honestly couldn’t tell you the exact moment things shifted. It’s been like watching grass grow—imperceptible day by day but undeniable over time. Regular solitude has heightened my awareness of what it’s like to be “on the other side of me.” And let me tell you, that’s been both enlightening and occasionally mortifying.

The Resistance I Didn’t See Coming

Here’s what caught me off guard: even knowing the payoff, I still resist. When I skip even brief moments of silence, I feel what I can only describe as soul-level muscle atrophy. Something deep within seems to dim until I return to stillness. It doesn’t take long to restore, but it does take intentionality, just like those physical therapy exercises I sometimes want to skip.

Why do we resist the things we know will help us?

A Swing and a Prayer

One of the most powerful moments came during a recent silent retreat. I’d mistakenly assumed it would be a multi-day training session, but instead found myself surrounded by quiet on a 300-acre contemplative retreat center. While walking one afternoon, I discovered a swing hanging between two trees.

I got on. When was the last time I’d done that? And soon I was soaring through the air, laughing aloud like a kid. I hadn’t swung in decades. At the peak of each arc, something clicked: I wasn’t just defying gravity—I was working with it, using its pull to propel me higher on the return.

That’s what solitude feels like to me now: a rhythm of effort and release that lifts me above my daily perspective. Like that swing, it’s not about fighting the forces that pull us down but learning to dance with them in a way that ultimately elevates us.

Finding What Works

What’s working for me now is structure—something my younger self would have probably resisted: 15–20 minutes of centering prayer daily, a weekly “HDWG” (Half Day With God) shared with my now-retired husband, and an 8-day silent retreat every other year. Each practice builds on the others, preparing me for the next layer of listening.

Even amid the noise of world events and neighborhood drama, solitude becomes my reset point. It doesn’t pull me out of the world—it roots me in it, more present, more whole, and dare I say, more human.

That could be the real defiance of gravity: not the momentary lift of a swing, but the sustained practice of rising above what would otherwise pull us down. In learning to work with the forces that shape us—whether physical or spiritual—we discover that falling isn’t the end of the story.

It’s often the beginning of learning how to soar.

What about you? What’s pulling you down these days? And what would it look like to work with that gravity instead of against it?