The Physics of Falling Up: Love, Gravity, and the Art of Losing Control

Metanoia at 90 miles per hour

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What is a living metaphor? It’s a metaphor that shakes you to the core.

Two days ago, I stepped out of my hotel in Dallas to stretch my legs after a tiresome day of computer work. The first thing I saw across the street was an amusement park: roller coasters, a circular train looping inside a huge ring, and a high tower with a capsule shooting up and down at high speed, filled with screaming passengers.

I smiled, recalling my last time on a roller coaster with my daughter in 2013, and thought: “This type of amusement—being turned upside down and shaken to the core—must be a powerful archetype, otherwise, why would people pay 50 bucks for 90 seconds of being shaken, tipped over, and hurled around.”

And yet, it is highly cathartic to let go of control for 90 seconds and experience falling. We all know it in our guts. Our brightest moments of happiness come when we release control. We think we’ll fall down—but instead, we fall up. In this world, there are only two ways to fall: down, into despair, or up, into love.

When we grasp control, we fall down—and into despair; when we release control, we fall up—in love. Falling in love is the ultimate experience of being turned upside down and shaken—something we all long for. The deepest desire of the human heart is to encounter something—anything—that will tip us over.

We long to be turned—turned around—what Greeks called metanoia. Metanoia is the ultimate experience of release. Literally, it means conversion—a turning around. This is what happens when we relinquish control and fall—in love. There are only two ultimate forces under the sun—gravity and love.

Gravity is what happens when we cling to control—it pulls us down through despair and toward the grave. Love, on the other hand, is what happens when we let go—it lifts us up through the experience of beauty—the Call—and toward heaven. In Greek, the words for “beauty” (kallos) and “to call” (kaleō) share the same root, revealing that true beauty is always a calling.

When we hear the Call, we experience the irresistible pull of beauty. St. John Climacus described repentance as “the renunciation of despair.” The only way to overcome despair—the “grave” force that pulls us down—is to renounce control. Despair is the result of clinging to control.

The Call is the ultimate roller coaster. It shakes us. It turns us upside down. It hurls us up into the air. For 90 seconds we let go and experience freefalling—falling in love.

“The eternal God is your refuge, and underneath are the everlasting arms.” Deuteronomy 33:27

To fall in love means to fall into everlasting arms. This is the real reason people go to amusement parks—to experience the falling that makes us happy. But we don’t need to pay 50 bucks every time our life becomes stale, and gravity pulls us down.

We can be “turned around” and “shaken” every time we let go of control and fall in love with beauty around us. “What am I falling in love with today?” is the primary question of life. To be moved, we must get in touch with the “love that moves the sun and other stars.”

Every star and every planet is in love—that’s why they move. That’s why we are moved when we look at them. They are always falling, yet always caught by their Partner. They fall into his arms and therefore fall up, not down. They spin in an endless waltz. This love is the ultimate mover—it sets the universe in motion and draws everything into a twirl around its invisible Center.

Check out my books:

1. Eleven Hidden Gems in the Works of the Inklings: The Music of Iluvatar in the Worlds of J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, and Owen Barfield

2. Forty-Four Mystical Insights into the Fantasy Books J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, and Owen Barfield

3. Daily Spiritual Readings from Literature Classics: Devotional Book for Life Inspiration (Book 3 in the Mystical Vision of the Inklings Series)

4. The New Exodus: Escaping One Man's War (based on the true story)