“Catchers ready?” I yelled, as I stood frightened at the top of the five foot high telephone pole. “Catchers ready!” the group shouted back confidently. with my hands at my sides and my body straight, I began to lean backwards towards the outstretched arms and hands waiting to catch me. As I fell through the air, I pictured myself lying limply on the ground, with half the bones in my body broken. My gravestone would read, “HERE LIES THE BOY WHO TRUSTED OTHERS.” Suddenly, I felt the safe, soft and secure grasp of arms and hands around my body as they strained with my weight but held me unharmed above the ground. No, I was not jumping out of the window as our house burned to the ground. Instead, I was having “fun” at a Challenging Outdoor Physical Encounter, COPE for short, and learning to have falth in others.
At the start of the week we had been ten men and boys, some ready to take on the world singlehandedly, and some ready to take the first car back home. But by the end of the week we were one team of friends, ready to work together in solving whatever difficulty we met. Being one of the oldest and most experienced, I must admit that I was overconfident on that first day. I was eager to show the beginners how to correctly tackle a challenging problem. Little did I know that my individual efforts would be useless, unless the group could rely on each other.
One afternoon early in the week, we gazed at two fifteen feet long wooden beams lying on the ground with loops of rope attached to the beam every foot and a half. We wondered why this contraption was called the Centipede. Soon we each found ourselves standing on the beams, a foot on each beam, with the rope handles in our hands, and our bodies touching front and back; question answered. As we struggled to move forward, each person trying on his own to lift the entire beam with ten people on it, I thought, “There must be a better way to do this.”
We decided we would have to coordinate our efforts if we were to get anywhere. The last person, since he could see what was going on, became the leader, and on his command we all lifted our left foot, then right foot, then left foot, and so on. In very little time we made it around the tree and back, although we did encounter some trouble changing direction. For each step, we relied on everyone else to lift his feet in order to move forward. All of our efforts would have been in vain if there had been one weak link. But by being able to trust the others to do their parts, we were able to work together and conquer the Centipede.
On that last day of camp, The wall was the only thing on our minds. It stood sixty-feet high, fifteen feet wide, with a small block of wood every three feet up. As I strained my neck looking towards the top, I knew there was no way I could make it up there on my own. We put on our gloves and our hard hats, and tied on our Swiss seats. The instructor asked for volunteers but no one budged. My mouth opened and before I could get my hand over it I had volunteered. The sooner the better, I rationalized; might as well get it over with now. But was “It” my successful climb to the top or my disastrous drop to death? Halfway up I looked down and my heart almost stopped. Here I stood, thirty feet in the air, hanging on blocks of wood one inch thick, all alone; or was I? My belayer and butt-belayer held me up by the taunt rope attached to my waist. Two other teammates stood beside them in case I needed to be lifted up. Above me, another two friends were ready to grab me when I got near the top. My last three comrades shouted encouragement along with everyone else. Their cheering helped reduce my fear and I began climbing.
My fingers were scraped and sore, my arms were weak from pulling up, and my legs had no more energy. As I reached for the next block of wood, I slipped and for one brief moment hung in mid-air. But my belayer had kept the slack out of the rope and caught me immediately. Once I needed an extra boost and my two teammates beside the belayer helped lift me. When I reached the top, I was exhausted but two friends picked me up and held me until I stopped shaking. I had done it, no, we had done it. We were a team; when one of us accomplished something, we had all accomplished it. The exhilarating feeling I felt at the top of the wall extinguished all doubts I had that some things are impossible. I had learned that as long as we believed in each other, we could tackle any problem facing us.
Deep Thoughts on Higher Ed 