Swimming
Posted by holyencounter on January 18, 2008
So I hit the pool again today. My preference is for outdoor activities (there is a wonderful walking trail in town that parallels the campus) but the cold has chased me indoors. So it’s back to the pool—better on the joints and much less boring than walking laps in the gym.
I don’t want to say I’m a bad swimmer; I’m more of a mediocre swimmer. I used to confidently tell myself—“You could survive in the water if you had too”—but these days I’m not so sure. Another thing is that I’m not a trained swimmer and only in the last few years (read: maybe a dozen or so times during the winter months!) have I swam for exercise. Yes, I was properly “trained” during summer swimming lessons as a child but let’s just say I never paid much attention to form. In a nutshell, I’ve always swam for fun which mostly meant short distances and frequent breaks!
So I’m teaching myself to swim—somewhat scary, huh! And I was actually surprised today that I remembered a lot of the relearning I did over the past two winters. That said, I still have to concentrate intensively on the whole breathing thing. You see my version of swimming before this new era of exercise swimming, the fun swimming period, meant keeping my head out of the water unless I was deliberating swimming underwater—kinda like a beaver or river otter except that I couldn’t hold my breath as long as they do and, of course, I don’t have webbed toes. So I had to accept the fact that if I was going to lap swim my face had to be in the water. This then meant I had to figure out the whole breathing thing which was particularly hard with free-style with all the moving limbs and heading turning—great evidence that humans were not designed to propel themselves through water.
This is the crux of my breathing problem—I don’t want to exhale underwater. But that causes another problem. My head is just above the water for a few seconds and trying to both exhale and inhale in those few seconds is not easy and can end in an airy watery mess. For a guy whose form is suffering already adding gasping and choking definitely doesn’t help. I really don’t know what is the real issue. Is it the unnatural feeling of exhaling underwater and then waiting to inhale above? Is how all the bubbles make swimming in foggy goggles even more of a challenge? Yet when I do it right; when I breathe out underwater and emerge above the surface at just the right time to take in a full breath it feels right; it feels good. It makes me a believer—“Hey, I can actually do this thing without totally water logging my lungs!”
While I’m concentrating on swimming—what the hands and feet are doing, opening and closing my mouth at the appropriate times—I start thinking about how much of life is this way. It feels like we are doing all we can just to make it the other end of the pool. Yes, we know the basic techniques but getting it all together is not so easy. And there’s keeping track of the cement sides of the pools, staying in your lane, and negotiating the wake of the guy beside you. But it all comes down to the breathing. We can move our arms and legs all we want but if we can’t get the breathing down we won’t make it to the other side—much less kick off and come back again.
What is it that makes the breathing so hard? Is it letting go of that breath? We know we need that air; it’s what keeps everything going; so we want to hold onto it as long as we can. But yet holding out on exhaling keeps us from taking in all the new, fresh air at the precise moment it’s available. So then we get less for the next stroke and seemingly less and less for each one that follows until our feet finally find the bottom on the shallow end and we pull up exhausted and completely out of breath. It seems doubtful we’ll make it back to the other end again.
I guess that breath is different for all us—a particular idea, belief, practice, expectation, habit. It’s familiar; it’s comfortable; it seems to be the only life-giving thing we got in the midst of a hostile environment. Yet we know how fleeting it is—it won’t last. We know we got what good was in it out of it and it’s got to go. But we’re uncertain. What if the stale CO2 is replaced by a mouthful of water—how better off we’ll we be? What if we don’t make it to the surface in time? Maybe we can hold onto to some of that breath and just add more above the water.
In the summer of 1998 I served as pulpit supply for three small, rural Presbyterian congregations while they were between pastors. They had formed their own parish and staggered their Sunday morning services at 9, 10, and 11. The last service was the smallest, oldest, and hottest. A handful of senior adults and a few young families gathered in their un-air-conditioned sanctuary. As the summer droned on and July and August came around worship became something you survived as much as anything. It became a real act of God not to pass out especially in the pulpit. Yet I can remember the congregation often singing Breathe on Me, Breath of God before hearing the scriptures and the Word proclaimed—
Breathe on me, breath of God,
Fill me with life anew,
That I may love what Thou dost love,
And do what Thou wouldst do.
Breathe on me, breath of God,
Until my heart is pure,
Until with Thee I will one will,
To do and to endure.
Breathe on me, breath of God,
Till I am wholly Thine,
Until this earthly part of me
Glows with Thy fire divine.
Breathe on me, breath of God,
So shall I never die,
But live with Thee the perfect life
Of Thine eternity.
I’ll be honest I don’t like mantras, snappy motivational phrases, or bumper sticker theology; so I’ve never really cared for the line “Let go and let God.” My dislike stems from how it’s used—as a pat response to someone in need. “OK, your loved one just died or you can’t pay the bills or you’re discriminated against at work because of your race or gender but I’ve done my part by telling you ‘Let go and let God.’” Seems incredibly crass and simplistic to me.
But…maybe…the idea itself is not so bad. Maybe we need to let go of our tired, exhausted, extinguished breaths and let the life-sustaining breath of God flow through us. How easily we’ve forgotten that our ancestors came into existence not by the strength of their own lungs but by the breath of God. How much different our lives would be if we began each day with the prayer, “God, breath some life into this earthen creature of yours; I can’t make it on my own; I need you.” That prayer doesn’t say everything is alright or will it be; but it does acknowledge our need for God in all situations. Paul tells us, “Pray without ceasing.” Occasionally breathing while your lap swimming is not going to cut it. Neither is occasionally relying on God. Every steps needs a prayer.
When I try to go it alone I eventually end up thrashing, gasping, and struggling for the sideline. When I go with God I can make it to the other end and back again. So breathe on me, breath of God; breathe on me, breath of God.
