Could Jesus swim?
He didn’t mind the water, did he… He could even walk on it in the middle of a storm. So I guess the water is much the same as the ground to him if he wants it to be.
But for me, when I prepared to do my first open-water triathlon earlier this year – swim, then bike and then run – I had a fair bit of mental preparation to do when it came to the swimming part.
Into the cold, dark water and out of my depth… My imagination had gone to the worst case scenario.
Where was Jesus at this time? In the same boat, telling me off for me lack of faith in the storm? Outside of the boat that I was in, calling for me to hop out and walk across to him?
In actual fact, I didn’t factor Jesus into the equation at this time. I was too busy working out my worst case scenarios.
Until later, when I did find Jesus:
At the bottom of the deep dark lake…
But first:
My Worse Case Scenario Imaginable…
It’s too late now anyhow… I’m under water. It’s deep and dark and so freezing cold that my face hurts, my skull crunches. My hands and legs flail around but there’s nothing to grab onto. I have no idea where the ground is, no idea where the surface of the water is, no idea what’s down here right next to me or beneath me. Effectively I am rendered blind, senseless.
It’s likely that a “taniwha” – a type of legendary Maori monster in New Zealand where I’m from – will grab me and pull me further down. Because this water is so deep it has no bottom: just as we were told as kids. And in the bottomless lakes are where the taniwha live: just as we were told as kids. Aren’t adults just so very hilarious the things they say to kids.
There’s no way I can draw breath down there. And having lived with asthma I know that feeling already. Out of breath.
That was the worst I imagined.
My Actual Case Scenario:
Here’s the actual case scenario of my first… and second… and pretty much also my third attempts at open water swim training:
I’m out in the middle of a lake trying to keep my body near the unreliable surface. I am trying to get from one buoy to another by putting my face repeatedly into the ice cold slime and moving my arms and legs. My goggles are full of the dark water which reminds me of the spirulina and kale smoothies I’ve been blending up lately. I might as well have worn sunglasses.
Though I began this swim by wading out a bit, there’s no way now my feet can find the bottom so I’ve given up trying. And though there are other people relatively near me – swimming caps bobbing like a sprinkle of sweeties on a dark picnic blanket – there’s no-one and nothing to grab on to. I figure these people are equally petrified – some of them look it anyway. I must try to relax.
I try and remember what someone told me: that a swim in this lake is beautiful really, when your face is in you can watch the way the light turns the water green and the rays dissipate into the depths. But it’s hard to concentrate on that good thought. The water is deep and dark and so freezing cold that my face is hurting. And my hands and feet are numb already.
I wonder what could be in there beneath me. I know there are fish and their presence is a sign of healthy waters. I remind myself that a “taniwha” is an improbability – Essex is quite far from New Zealand. But then again – a bottomless lake in New Zealand would by definition need to finish on the other side of the world.
I can draw breath here – above the surface. But my neck feels constricted by the tight wetsuit. I manage 5 or 10 metres of swimming each time before needing to recover. Then I force my body to find a floatation position to remind myself that I can breathe.
I manage not to panic too badly. I am so relieved when we get back to shore. When I get out I text my husband and a sporty girlfriend to alert them to my survival.
“The good news is … I am Alive”.
The reality is different from my imagined worse case scenario. But on reflection, I am doing this on purpose – getting up at 5.30am for the privilege. So…
I consider giving up.
This is not the swimming to which I am accustomed. It’s not tidy and blue and chlorinated. There’s no pretty line to follow. It’s more untidy. You’ve got to raise your head to find your own direction. Like drawing outside the lines. It’s swimming outside the edges. Or I suppose, proper wild swimming.
I don’t like to give up. I’d rather not learn to like giving up.
I like to learn to like things I don’t like. It’s almost a hobby of mine.
I learned to like peanut butter in sensible rebellion as a 10 year old because my sister used to menacingly chase me with it. At 21, I learned to like olives by persevering through the chewing of about 35 of them one evening. At 28, I learned to like running by way of much crying and a little swearing. In my 30s, I even chose to go through child birth more than once.
And my new thing lately that I now like, is learning not to like things I previously liked but I know are not good for me. Like alcohol and sugar.
I want to sort my mind out on this swimming thing too. Partly because I’ve committed to raise money for charity but also just for me. So I go home and find a Paul McKenna DVD and hypnotize myself to enjoy the experience of open water swimming.
And that’s where I find Jesus:
On the DVD, Paul McKenna talks me through a countdown and he says he will walk through the steps with me in my imagination. To change my freaked out feeling to a calmer one. Only, I just don’t want Paul there in my imagination. Though I’m sure he’s very nice, that’s just too weird.
But my friend Jesus is in my mind and heart everyday and he gently walks through it with me instead. Through the grass, on the beach, down the staircase.
And there Jesus is as well at the bottom of the deep dark lake. Except in my new imagination, it’s now at the bottom sweeping Gone-with-the-Wind-style staircase. Hello Jesus, here I come. And I put on my wetsuit once again.
Nightmare in the Swimming Pool
Fast forward a couple of months. This is after I have learned to enjoy swimming in the open water and completed the triathlon. And enjoyed it. And revelled in the smug feeling of achievement.
I wake up from a terrible nightmare set in a swimming pool. The main thrust of the nightmare is simply a morbid feeling that I have been negligent as a mother. I have been pushing my young daughter down and down so her feet can reach the bottom of the swimming pool. She desperately wants to touch the bottom.
It’s difficult to get all the way down there.
I can see the “taniwha” looming from above. And it is me. Ironically, my good intentions make me the monster…. Do it, child, I will make you do it, child…
The Big Pool
The day before the nightmare, I took our 8 year old daughter to the big pool for the first time. When I say the big pool, I mean the Big Pool. It’s 50 metres long and 3 metres deep. It feels deeper! (So it turns out I accidently exaggerated when I told my mother it was 15 feet deep!)
You’re only allowed to swim in the Olympic Competition Pool if you’re 8 years old – which our daughter is – and a competent swimmer… which surely is a matter of opinion when it comes to our youngest daughter!
You see right from when she was a baby she has adored water. She loves getting wet and staying wet. It’s usually a battle to get her out of the bath. She’d like to stay in there for hours, honestly.
As a parent you’re meant to closely supervise your children’s baths, but with our youngest daughter .because of her love of a long long bath, this is a real challenge. And over time, as she’s grown older, I’ve slightly relaxed about her baths.
Often, when she’s in the bath, I’ll call out “Are you okay in there, darling?” and there’ll be no answer. I wait. A second more urgent call out of her name as I stop what I’m doing…Not a peep. I’ll rush in….
Of course she’s fine. But she’s face down in the water testing herself.
It would seem we have a mermaid for a daughter!
Which makes more sense of the mermaid mummy and daughter game she used to insist I play with her at the local pool. Sometimes there’d also be a scarey shark involved.
Over the last year, since we started back with swimming lessons for her, she’s been flying up through the lesson levels.
But one thing I notice. While being under water has never bothered her, she doesn’t seem to me to have exactly mastered the practice of staying at the top of the water yet. When I’m looking at least, she will often bounce off the floor of the pool when she wants to grab a breath.
Too confident in the presence of a floor? What if it’s no floor there anymore? What if this large watery container really was bottomless? All valid questions from a newly tri-athletic mother now with experience in open water swimming…
My older daughters were shocked at me taking their 8 year old sister in to the Big Competition Pool. But on that particular day, because I’d mistakenly left all the swimming costumes behind and had to do another round trip home, we’d already missed her lesson and the times for the training pool. Perhaps this was the time for our mermaid daughter to discover her full buoyancy.
She and I approached the big pool boldly. The lifeguards didn’t say anything. So we got into the water.
I swam right behind her. We got out of the pool and walked back to the beginning in between so that we would be swimming each length by the side of the pool. She slowly swam 3 whole lengths.
But the thing is this: She would only get about 15 metres along before her legs would start sinking down and down.
Was she using the power in her legs at all? Was she subconsciously searching for her feet to find the floor?
She’d get about 5 more metres and then grab onto the side of the pool – and have to recover. Not quite what I had in mind.
There’s me encouraging her to carry on quickly : “Come on honey, you need to swim or we’ll have to get out!” … And trying to say it loudly enough so that the other swimmers around might understand I understand their frustration at our slowness.
Afterwards she told me that when she was swimming in the big pool she started to feel like she was sinking and that’s why she had to grab the side.
I was reminded that her swimming teacher recently explained that she just needs to use her legs more strongly in her breast stroke and she’ll jump up to the next level of lessons.
She’s got the power and she’s got to learn to use it.
Isn’t that the story for all of us?
We have the power given to us. Why don’t we use it?
…….
After our swim we have fun together just trying to stand on the bottom of the 3 metre deep pool. It’s a challenge that took me a few times to master. Of course, our mermaid daughter at 8 years old managed it fine – twice. Though I confess it took some strategic pushing to get her down there feet first as per my later nightmare.
But here’s the thing. Despite the worst of my imagination, there really was no “taniwha” at the bottom. Nor even above.
And where was Jesus?
In the bible, it tells of Jesus’ disciples being in a boat and totally freaking out during a big storm even though Jesus was there sleeping in the boat. They really didn’t need to worry; he had a quick word to the storm and it stopped. Another time, Jesus is not on the boat but walking towards the boat and calling out for someone to hop over the side and walk towards him. Another time, Jesus knew exactly where all the fish were and guided the fishermen to the biggest catch of their lives.
Water doesn’t phase Jesus. Of course it doesn’t, he created it! No wonder he could sleep through a storm and then tell everyone off for being freaked out.
Neither did I need to be freaked out.
Jesus, there with me even when undiscovered while I was swimming. The one who created the water. Who created me and let me swim in the water. Graciously giving me – not to mention my mermaid daughter – the power of life to live and limbs to use. The King of Kings there in person to meet me at the bottom of my grand sweeping staircase. And not just in my imagination.
The way, the truth and the life. He is Emmanuel – and that means
God With Us.
I may be bound by natural laws and my own limitations, but on top of a lake or at the bottom of the pool he’s really there with me, giving me the power to swim on up.
Why be freaked out when Jesus is around?
Mental note. You are alive. And as I tell my daughter, You must use the power you’ve been given. Float or keep swimming. Break through to the surface. You can breathe.
