Once a Swimmer, Always a Swimmer

"You know what you gotta do when life gets you down?
Just keep swimming."

As I previously mentioned in another entry, the pool was where I could always find myself and incidentally is the locale where I questioned the Catholic faith and became an agnostic. I started to swim competitively at the age of seven, and that continued through junior year of high school but stopped my senior year because my heart was no longer in it. Over that 11 year period, the time I treasured all that time spent in the pool because that was the only place I could clearly hear myself think without interruption. 

Swim coaches tend to throw heaps of sets with little rest in between at swimmers over a two hour period. In that time it is just you and the gentle waves which bend over the surface of your body in the pool. The feeling you get while working out in that type of environment may be physically exhausting, but it is a perfect setting for thinking. All you can hear is the ambient sound of the water rolling over you and you have all the time in the world. As I swam, I would think about life, everything from what's for dinner to reviewing my Spanish vocabulary words to asking deep spiritual questions. In high school, I began to question my Catholic faith intensely, and I concluded that the doctrine was wrong. I wanted nothing to do with it. Furthermore, I began to analyze and think about what I believe.

I can't exactly pinpoint the day that I rejected Catholicism, but what I do know is that it happened in the pool sophomore year of high school because I had been given this environment. After my junior year I had lost that time in the pool so my faith became somewhere suspended in the realm of agnosticism until I finally received that push from Allyson that the pool use to give me. The push was the drive to question things in my life and to determine such things for myself. Costa Rica then provided an environment that was similar to the pool, where I could question and think critically in periods of isolation.

Well, I'm back now, and I feel like God has been calling me back to have more pool time. Last week I started to swim again. I returned to the environment where I began to question faith and make it my own. Before the pool acted as a catalyst for transition from Catholic to agnostic, but now it is acting as a scaffolding for my Christianity. Not only do I once again have that place to ask the hard questions, I now have an incredible place to talk to God. I treasure and love the pool now for this reason.

In addition, the pool has provided an opportunity to honor God with my body by respecting it and taking care of it. Over the past two weeks, I have tried to make a conscious effort to maintain my body's health, fitness, and purity. This means making good physical decisions by making intentional decisions about working out, eating well (I'm trying to avoid those infamous monochromatic meals I love), and making positive decisions in my relationship.

For now I will just keep swimming.