Can You Say, "Splat"?

Matt Brown says that he loves the Grand Canyon. But the next time he goes back, he doesn't plan on looking at it through a new glass sky walk that will jut out from the rock face, literally giving one a bird's eye view of the canyon.

I love to fly. (I'm especially mad-keen for take-offs and landings!) I love climbing to the tops of landmarks like the Washington Monument, the Empire State Building, or the John Hancock Tower.

But I think that I would take a pass on that glass walkway myself!

Several years ago, my family and I, including my then-seventy-four year old mother-in-law, went to Mesa Verde in Colorado. It was spectacular! And I was impressed by the m-i-l's gameness and physical agility. But I have to say that it gave me the willies to walk as closely to 8000-foot dropoffs as we did. My palms are sweating all over the keyboard just writing about it.

Anthropologists say that the most ancient of human fears is that of falling. Students of the brain say that may explain why people's most frequent recurring dreams is about falling.

My personal experience tells me that's so. The only recurring dream from my childhood that I can remember is one in which I stumbled, out of control, down creaky basement steps on a dark stairway that seemed to go on forever.

Isn't it interesting, too, that when describing humanity's alienation from God, beginning with Adam's and Eve's rebellion, we've always used the term, 'the fall'?

Maybe that's what frightens us so much about heights, an old memory of a bad decision.

That, and the fact that the combination of height and gravity can have negative consequences for the human body. Can you say, "Splat"?