paul told me to make a leap of faith, well, i took one, probably not the one he meant, but i did. and to tell you about it, i'm just gonna show you a story i wrote. i'm not submiting it as a deviation because it sucks, it's lame and cliche' but it works:

"Leap of faith"
"cause life is full of leaps of faith, and when you observe one, you understand them all"

There was this lake that I used to visit a lot. It wasn't really a lake, just a pond really, but it was only about a half-hour bike ride from my house.

One summer, the summer i turned 17, my three friends and I spend a lot of time exploring "The Lake." We found all kinds of places to swim, murky ones, rocky ones, weady ones. And we were just about to retire swimming for the summer, thinking there was no where exciting to swim, when Tara had to prove us wrong.

Tara is a small, kitten-like person, I'm sure you know the type, because everybody loves kitteny people. She just happened to lose control of her bike on the last day and went sliding right through the thick shrubs to discover this new spot.

This one was different from the others and we knew it. There was a cozy sandy beach wich snuggled right up to a ledge that quickly turned into a cliff as you climbed up it. Where the ledge was at it's highest, the water was at it's deapest. Of course, Kim and Sammy couldn't let such a "prime spot" go to waste. So we came back, and we came back again, and again. I knew what they meant by "prime spot" though, it was the cliff that atracted them. The cliff was made of dusty grey stone, trying to fall apart at odd angles, all being held together by a short crop of weeds at the top.

Kim, of course, was the first to jump. None of us had realized she'd even left till we heard a sharp, "GERONIMO!" and a splash. We all turned to see her bobbing again at the surface. Sammy followed almost before Kim hit the water, as is expected. She scrambled up the slope by hopping up the inclining ledge, then flung herself off, her flailing body hitting the water with a reluctant spray. And that was it for that day, but Tara, who would never willingly to such a thing, was goaded into it a few days later. She sat at the edge and let herself slide down, keeping contact with the dirt and weeds as long as possible, dust and twigs accompanying her descent.

I didn't jump that week, or the next. Tara asked if i was going to, Kim told me every day that i should, and Sammy teased me and said (to Tara's embarasment) that if Tara could do it, so could i.

It wasn't untill days that were warm enough to swim were quickly becoming few and far between that i ventured up that way. Kim and Sammy were wrestling in the water, trying to pull each other under. Tara was sun-bathing on the sand, and i was letting the sun dry me while sitting on the short part of the ledge attached to the beach. For whatever reason, the jagged face of the cliff kept catching my eye that day.

I glanced at Tara. With her sun-glasses on, i assumed her eyes were closed. The other two were still going at it in the water. So i pulled my feet up over the ledge and worked my way up. The weeds were stiff and hurt even the summer-toughened parts of my feet. Each step that brought me closer to the top took loger and longer. At it's highest point, i didn't dare look down, rather, i slid my toes forward untill I could curl them over the edge.

I heard nothing, not the breaze, nor the wood-pecker that had been banging around all day. I didn't even realize that Kim, Sammy and Tara had all stopped to cheer me on. All i heard was a wild rushing in my ears as my frantic heart anticipated an enormous drop. I slowly shifted my sight from the mountains to the trees, from the trees to the far edge of The Lake, from the far edge to the bright splash of the sun's reflection directly below me. The reflection was blinding, i saw nothing else.

Then all of a sudden the earth shifted her weight below me and I lost all controll of my body as my feet scrambled to find land. The splash of light was getting bigger, coming closer to me untill that was all that existed, me and the sun i was rapidly falling towards. Then nothing existed as i broke that barrier. During the two seconds i was under water, time slowed to the point that one heart beat counted a year of my life. I was suspended in this cool substance in a time out of time when i realized i had just survived The Jump. I had put faith in the familiar water we called The Lake, i had put faith in the un-familiar cliff, i had put faith in myself, and lived to tell of it.

And then life came rushing back as i rose to the surface basping. Tara and Sammy clapped in mild amusement and Kim swam over to remark snidely, "you're still alive."