Yesterday we took assorted visiting family members and 'ran away' to the circus . . . I have been to a circus once before . . . when I was a child with my family. For most of the rest, it was their very first in person circus.
Now, I have seen MANY movies/TV shows that featured a circus . . . read books that referred to them . . . but it was different, seeing it in person. I think that maybe I have become jaded because I have gotten so used to watching stunts on a screen that has been digitally mastered, or that was filmed against a blue screen or that relied heavily on camera angles to produce the 'magic' . . .
Watching acrobats -- in person -- some with safety wires, some without, do their stunts HIGH above the arena really made me realize how risky what they do IS . . . These groups did flips and stunts that were extremely dangerous . . . You could tell they were well rehearsed, and had put in long hours perfecting their craft. One pair did these stunts on these big . . . hamster wheels. I don't know what else to call them. They ran around inside AND outside, skipping rope, relying on their superb senses of timing and balance to keep them from falling, if not to their deaths, at least to serious injury.
Even watching the tiger tamer with his seven or eight BIG, powerful cats, cracking his whip and having them to tricks and perform seemed much scarier and riskier in person, where you can SEE the men dressed in black stationed every few feet around the outside of the enclosure with cattle prods and nooses, just there as insurance in case something goes horribly wrong.
We watched it all, enthralled and DELIGHTED . . . the elephants dancing . . . the horses and zebras performing . . . the stunts . . . the clowns . . . the acrobats . . . the tricks . . . the 'miraculous' disappearing and reappearing sleights of hand . . . It was a FUN afternoon to spend together . . .
And then we returned home and I changed and ran off to the baptism of a new friend in our ward. I have known her for only a few short months, and I do not know her well . . . but I know her enough to know a little about the journey her life has been to get to the point where she wishes to get baptized and be clean and whole before the Lord and begin her quest to return to her Heavenly Father . . .
After watching all those magical, breathtaking, awe inspiring stunts all afternoon, it was very humbling to be so strongly reminded, once again, that the miracles performed in individual human hearts . . . where old patterns, old weaknesses, old burdens are cleansed and lifted and someone is given a chance to start over, with a fresh slate, is truly the biggest miracle, the most amazing journey of all . . .
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