Have you ever experienced a zip line?  This weekend, I had the opportunity to zip.  I recommend it.  Great fun, plus you get to dress up in the zip costume, complete with harness, helmet and the ever-important carabineer.

I tried to reduce the various elements of the zip into a few basic components.  Here’s my list—Zip Liners—Decide, Prepare, Climb, Leap, Trust, Sail, Enjoy.  At the risk of making too many cheesy connections, I think the elements of zip can be analogous to the leap we make when we leave home for college.

First, you have to choose to zip—you decide.  This is a conscious decision, to do something you’re not accustomed to doing.  You decide to take a chance, a calculated risk, that the experience will stretch you, test you.  Next, you prepare.  That’s right, prepare.  I was ready to get zippy, but they wanted me to learn the basics, to understand the equipment, test it, rely on it.  In a sense my zipologist helped me understand what to expect and how to cope with what lay ahead.

After that is was time to climb.  You heard me right, climb.  Why am I climbing, we’re already looking at 900 feet of cable stretched across a canyon?  Well, according to the instructor, the higher up we begin the leap, the more speed we’ll achieve and the more fun we’ll have.  Frankly, I hadn’t taken the climb into account.  I’ve seen pictures of zip line installations where you walk onto this lovely ramp and zip.  Take a look.  This zip required a climb.  Straight up, don’t look down, grab the pegs, one step at a time climb (see photo of me nestled in the pine limbs).

With the climb complete you reach a platform up in the tree (by the way, who builds these things?).  Now the moment you came for—the leap.  Funny word, leap.  It’s a faith word isn’t it?  It’s linked directly to the next zip-word—trust.  You have to be willing to trust (the instructors, the equipment, the advice, the 900 feet of cable).  If you can’t trust, in spite of what certain signals your brain is sending you, you can’t leap and zip.  Will you muster up the courage, curiosity and hope you brought to the experience and step off the platform and leap into the experience?

I took the step into the air.

I was now sailing, suspended over a canyon, gaining speed and feeling as if I was flying.  Sailing in a way only we zippys understand.  Hopefully you have come to trust the components of the experience enough to enjoy the fact that you are sailing.  You are doing something because of the choices, the preparation, the trust and courage that was necessary to zip.  What fun!  Can I zip some more?  Assume the flying position?  Zip backwards?

You can draw the lines of metaphor conclusion, from zip line to college leap.  I think they’re real.  The worthwhile things in life require a sense of adventure, a preferably well-credentialed guide, an element of trust in yourself and the place and people where you’ve chosen to attend college (or zip).

In the midst of all this, there’s the climb.  Maybe high school was a climb.  Maybe packing up and saying goodbye was the climb.  Either way, that may be the hardest part.  To reach the point where you’re ready to leap, you have to trust in all that’s been invested in you to this point and step off from what you know and trust that those who have gone before will now show you the way to sail.

If you’re coming my way, to NNU, I want you to know that we have been preparing for your arrival.  We have studied and reflected and built and crafted; we have set up a wonderful experience for you.  It involves hard work, preparation and the faith required for real adventure.  We don’t know where all of this will lead for you, but we invite you to participate in the joy of learning to sail at altitudes and in places you have yet to soar.  We can’t leap for you, or trust for you, but we wholeheartedly pledge to be alongside you to guide you, to put our hope and trust and faith in you.  We want you to soar in ways beyond your imagining.  And I believe that together, with you and with God, we will do just that.