OH, so it has a name! That was my thought as I read a photo caption of an art rendition of a child spinning and running along a discarded bicycle tire with a stick.
I grew up playing with that. Every discarded tire became a toy that you spin with a stick while you run alongside. Even the normal car tires. Smaller tires are coaxed with a stick, and the big ones, you just push with your hands — this makes for dirty hands.
Looking back, it was just a fun way of running. You run at full speed by coaxing the tire faster with your stick, you slow down by putting the stick alternately by the sides of the wheel instead of hitting it to go forward, and then you stop by picking up the tire for small tires or just holding or pushing aside the big ones.
Those were Generation X days as I’m among the earliest X-ers. Since then, Millennials, GenZ’s and Gen Alphas have arrived and the eldest Gen Alphas are old enough to play with discarded tires. All those years, decades after I last played I didn’t know that this has a name.
The name is Kariling, and it’s taken from the Cebuano word which means to spin.
This brings me to a reflection on a Bible verse that recently grabbed my attention and demanded interpretation.
Hebrews 6: 1-2 reads: Therefore, leaving behind the elementary teachings about the Messiah, let us continue to be carried along to maturity, not laying again a foundation of repentance from dead actions, faith toward God, instruction about baptisms, the laying on of hands, the resurrection of the dead, and eternal judgment. (ISV)
It just popped up during my readings and I was floored... why would the Bible tell us to go on and no longer lay the foundation of “faith toward God”?
The answer came just as fast as if I was engaged in a conversation on my own. My other self asked in response: Why, do you need faith to know you are Stella?
So that was it. Once you get into the groove of knowing, that deep knowing, you do not need faith. I know who I am, I no longer need faith to know that I am. Perfect.
Much like Kaliring, really. We all knew it was a toy, an instrument to run at full speed with and to race along with friends, we didn’t need to identify it. We just know. We do not need to call it by name because it already is. In your mind, in your life, it is. And so it is.
It’s that kind of knowing.
Once you get it, then faith steps out and you’re on the next level.
It’s said that when faith walks in, fear walks out. The next level is, when knowing walks in, faith prances away. As the Bible says, “let us continue to be carried along to maturity”, which the King James Version states as “let us continue to be carried along to maturity.”
But that’s just me, and I’m not a pastor.
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