A curious expression, isn’t it? Waiting for the other shoe to drop. But anyone who’s ever lived in an apartment understands where it came from. Residents above you coming in from a day’s work wanting to get out of work clothes into something comfortable. Without a sound-proof barrier, you hear one shoe fall to the floor. You wait, expecting the second one to drop at any moment.
Things that fall seldom meet with a good fate. A dish slipping out of one’s hands. That egg you thought you held securely on your trip across the kitchen. Falling things also wreak havoc and wreck the good fate of all other things within range. Airplanes malfunctioning. Missiles carefully aimed. Torrential rains. Tons of earth or snow breaking loose from on high. Destruction. Devastation. Death.
And so, the expression, waiting for the other shoe to drop, is usually understood as waiting for the next disastrous thing to happen or anticipating the arrival of a second wave of bad news. The thud of the drop can knock the wind out of us, send us reeling and careening for days or weeks. We might feel a knot in our stomachs, a dread in our hearts, an uneasiness in our bones. Even if we believe ourselves to be strong with nerves of steel, that other shoe may potentially pack the punch that will feel like an emotional TKO.
And so, the issues that constantly swirl around and within us are matters of moving forward, getting back up, dusting ourselves off, finding a spark of life after the tamping of tragedy. Trusting despite betrayal. Persevering through pain. Shedding the dread. Acknowledging the knots but not being stopped by them. Discovering more at the core of our bones that will keep us on our feet. Sounds implausible, doesn’t it? Nothing short of miraculous, perhaps. And largely beyond our ken.
Lauded poet William Butler Keats penned powerful words about these challenges we all face in his piece entitled The Second Coming. His honesty is unnerving: Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold… Whoa, talk about the thud of the other shoe! If the center doesn’t hold when things fall apart, what can? Or who will? The darkness drops again; he continues, yet seems to shake the blackness with surprising confidence: but now I know That twenty centuries of stony sleep Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle, And what rough beast, its hour come round at last, Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?
Perhaps the awaited other shoe belongs not to neighbor or foe but signals a Divine Mystery longing to be known.
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