I watched some Grade 5 and 6 kids in the gym today. They were practicing for the high jump. And they soared. Not one knocked the bar off its perch. I was enthralled by the beauty of flowing bodies.

Some were clearly athletes. They threw their backs over and legs followed suit easily … way over the bar. One girl was a little overweight and didn’t have the grace of some others as she approached the pit. But she got over – every time. And the gym exploded with applause at each of her triumphs. It was community.

There’s something about the high jump that transfixes me. Human beings leaving the fetters of their grounded life to be one with the creatures of the air … ever so briefly. May these children rise above in their lives, living moments where the hum and the drum fade into the background, replaced by the bliss of unselfish love, a blinding insight or an act of pure kindness. For we are beings of the stratosphere, citizens of the inner sweetness, followers of an unknown song.

May we never fall back to earth.