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Falling Down In Public
by Jon Carroll
July 24, 1997

L. RON HUBBARD said that the way to get rich in America was
to start a religion, and when people accused him of being
cynical, he went out and did it.

L. Ron Hubbard was a writer who felt himself
undercompensated considering his enormous gifts. I too am a
writer. I have no comment at all about my compensation, and
will have none until my religion gets going.



The Church of Falling Down in Public.

I had this idea, which I am now calling an awakening, when I
fell down in public. I want to explain the apparent reason
why I fell down, not that I was embarrassed in any way, even
though it was in front of a whole bunch of people.

On the sidewalk near the South Park Cafe in San Francisco,
there are some street trees. The trees are surrounded at
their bases by pebbles. The tops of the pebbles are perhaps
one inch below the surface of the sidewalk.

It's an uneven surface. It's a trap for the unwary. It's an
opportunity for growth.

So I was communing with the inside of my brain, trying to
achieve oneness with the universe and remember the name of
my luncheon companion. My eyes were straight ahead, as eyes
are designed to be. I expected the sidewalk to be where the
sidewalk always is. My foot hit the pebbles instead; I
stumbled.

It was one of those magnificent full-frontal stumbles. I
left a vacant spot against the sky. In an instant, I was
prone of the sidewalk -- but I was not prone to argue. No
sir! At that moment, I thought: This is the first communion
in the Church of Falling Down in Public.

It wasn't a silly mistake; it was a way of freeing my mind
from mundane concerns. It was an epiphany. So many people
fall down in public without understanding it as an act of
worship. I could be a river unto those people.

APREGNANT WOMAN helped me up. I'm sure I don't have to get
into the symbolism involved here. A pregnant woman helped me
up. The Mother Goddess, if you will. She had a Texas accent,
this goddess.

``God bless you, darlin', are you all right?'' she asked.

People of the book (or of the newspaper, anyway), hear me
now: She said, ``God bless you, darlin'.'' What could be
clearer? My act of Falling Down in Public had received
instant affirmation from the deity. And then she said: ``Are
you all right?''

Of course I'm all right! I'm blessed! I've fallen down in
public! I once was down and now am up! I have risen! It
feels good to be good today! Can someone say ``fall down?''

SO WHAT I AM saying now is this: If you have fallen down in
public, send me money. Yes, a nice letter would be swell
too, I'll be sure to file it, but mostly the money. Because
I need to spread the word. We're going to start a college or
something.

We're going to send men with narrow ties to fall down in
your neighborhood. We're going to have entire battalions of
women falling down in airports. I'm going to have a
television show and everyone will fall down and then they
will get up. May I say that again: And then they will get
up.

Sometimes you feel as though you'll never get up. Am I
right? Sometimes you are tired and confused and weary and
you wonder whether you'll get up ever again. But you will!
Every day at 6 a.m. on Channel 71, we'll all get up
together.

And then we'll write checks. Say ``fall down!'' Thank you.
Because life is a hard road with many street trees and
stupidly designed pebble beds, and we all fall down
sometimes, and the trick is to see the falling down as our
first blessing. Say ``fall down'' for me! Yes!
-------------------------------------------------------------
I sing because I'm happy; I sing because I'm free; his eye
is on the sparrow, so he must be watching [e-mail],
far bigger than a sparrow, fall down in public.
-------------------------------------------------------------
Is there someon in the congregation today who has tripped
and stumbled? Good news!