A Leap of Faith

I've been thinking lately about Dumbo's feather.  You remember, Dumbo wakes up high in a tree with the crows (after a drunken escapade -- Disney blackout!!), and the explanation of how they got there is, well, Dumbo, you must have flown!  The crows convince the baby elephant that if he holds a “magic” feather in his trunk, he can fly.  It works!  Dumbo soars merrily about on his huge ears, until the feather is whooshed out of his grasp and he panics, hurtling toward the ground.  The crows must make fast work convincing Dumbo that the feather was an unnecessary crutch, and the flying is in him, not in the feather.  Just in time, Dumbo believes them and swoops upward again.

So, did the feather make Dumbo fly?  It’s true that without it, he would never have taken the step off the high limb. But think: It wasn’t the feather that let Dumbo fly, but his belief, his faith, in the feather.  He believed, and so he flew.  When the feather got away, his belief in the feather stayed fast, and he started to fall.  

Okay, so it wasn’t the feather itself, but his belief in the feather . . . Wait, it was really his ears that made it possible for Dumbo to get airborne.  Not the feather, or even the belief in the feather.   True, without the feather  he would not have tried to fly, but he probably had the skill for a while before it was discovered/uncovered.  It was an innate ability; Dumbo was born with the tools for flight.

So the ears have it!

What skill were you born with that is waiting for a feather?