The Freedom to Obey (Part 1)

This past weekend, my husband and I were invited to a retreat from the University of Maryland-Baltimore Campus. The retreat's intention was to promote education and encourage minorities to continue towards completing their graduate degrees. Our role was to simply listen and provide the students with positive encouragement during many of the outdoor activities of the retreat.

I thought that the activities would include a small hike and some form of camping. But the activities that we were a part of were completely different from what we expected. Let me show you an example of such activity:
The images you see is an example of one of the outdoor activities we were a part of this weekend. For this activity, 10 people were required. Four people held 4 red ropes that were attached to the top of the ladder: two ropes were holding the front portion of the ladder and the remaining 2 ropes were holding the back of the ladder. The people holding the four red ropes were referred to as guidelines. Their role was to extend all the red ropes simultaneously with the purpose of lifting the ladder in mid-air while keeping the ladder straight. The other 4 people were in charge of holding the ropes that were attached to the harness of the climber. Two students held one rope, which attached to the right side of the harness and the remaining two students held the rope that was connected to the left side of the harness. Their role was to help the climber go up the ladder steps and served as a "safety net" for the climber in case there was a slip-up. The ninth person was the project manager, which overlooked all of the tasks and the tenth and most important person was the "volunteer" climber (although everyone was volunteered!).

The climber in my opinion had a hard task. He/she had to climb the steps while communicating to the guidelines if the ladder was unstable or to the others if the harness was loose. In addition, once the climber reached the second-to-top step of the ladder, he/she had to let go of the ladder's sides, raise their hands in a cross-like fashion and push themselves from the ladder to mid-air. What a task!

My first thought was "There is no way I am going up that ladder!" Instead, I decided to be delay my climb as much as I could. In order to delay this process, I volunteered to be one of the guidelines first. After my duties as a guideline were completed and it was time to rotate roles, I then volunteered to hold the ropes tied to the harness. Trust me. I did not want to go up and did all I could to avoid it!

The first climber that volunteered was an 18-19 year student. He was super excited and started going up the ladder very fast. It was very scary from the rope holder's perspective as we had to be very aware and make sure the student was stable while he climbed. After all, his life was in our hands! To ensure the climber's safety, we worked in teams. We communicated (mainly shouted!) if one of the rope holders was not paying attention or if the climber was going too fast for the rope holders to keep pace.

One by one, the students all had a chance to go up that ladder. Many students were very confident and without hesitation let go of the ladder. Others, were very frightened and hesitated to let go for fear of falling and/or that the rope holders were not paying attention. As I watched every student go up the ladder, I noticed that although every single one of them successfully let go of the ladder in the end, there was a moment of hesitation once they reached that final step. As I kept thinking about that, one of the team leaders said, "OK, it is your turn." I was harnessed and the ropes attached to my harness were fastened. I took a deep breath and commenced to climb.

(TO BE CONTINUED....)