SWIMMING TOWARD FAITH
Hail Mary full of grace, I say as I drop into the pool and take the first stroke. Blessed art thou among women — reach arms, roll shoulders — and blessed be the fruit of thy womb Jesus. Turn my head, suck a lung-full of air, blow it out long and slow and watch the bubbles sparkle away Holy Mary Mother of God — kick, turn, push off the wall. Pray for us sinners now and in the hour of our death.
Sometimes I say the “hour of our need,” and always I pray for our children, my sisters and friend Beth. I’ll replace “sinners” with their names and other things too, like congress, or our school. Head Start. This community. Ukraine. Gaza and Israel. Juneau. The eagles nesting in the neighbor’s spruce tree. The cruelty in the news can be overwhelming. Please help refugees, I pray. Please? Thank you. Prayers make a difference, somehow. I feel better.
When I say that first Holy Mary Mother of God, I smile. You see, when I was a kid, I spent summers in sailing class on Long Island with friends, including Meg and her siblings Michael, Mark, Matthew, Miles and Maryanne. Meg, Matt and I and sailed a Blue Jay sloop together. At the beginning of each season, we practiced capsizing and righting the boat. It was so we wouldn’t be afraid, so we’d be prepared for the worst. We’d clamber to the high side and hang on or bounce on the centerboard until the boat swung upright, wet sails flapping. Just before we flipped, and anytime we heeled over too far, Meg screamed, “Holy Mary Mother of God, say goodbye to your relatives, we’re going over.” Pretty soon we joined the chorus.
Decades later, living on the far coast of Alaska, I learned the first part came from the Hail Mary prayer. During Lent I take on a spiritual practice, in part, because I have had some difficult stuff to work out each spring. One April, I was run over by a truck while riding a bicycle and almost killed. It took a year to walk again. On the outside my recovery is complete. I still ride a bike, but inside, I’m not always okay. Is anyone? Ever since my accident, in spite of my intentional optimism, my mission to find the good — I can’t help it, I expect drivers to run stop signs. Headaches to become brain tumors. Planes to crash. Bad things to happen to good people. My mother spent a Lent dying of leukemia.
Mom took my sisters and me to Trinity Episcopal Church every Sunday. Weekdays, we attended the Quaker school where she taught. On Sundays, worship meant stained glass windows and a thundering organ. At school, we gathered once a week for Quaker Meeting in a plain gray barn of a building. It was mostly silent. No hymns, scripture readings or memorized prayers. Sometimes the “spirit moved” someone to stand and speak, but that was rare. It was a relief at sixteen to be silent.
I decided to learn the rosary prayers after attending a funeral, where it was said before the mass. I tried to follow along in the leaflet, juggling the pages while rolling the wooden beads of a borrowed rosary between my fingers, but quickly gave up. Instead, I sat still and listened to the rushing river of Hail Marys. I like holding a string of prayers in my hand. I liked the chanting. I understood it mattered even if I had no idea what it meant.
A rosary is still the best kind of comfort on bumpy Alaskan plane rides, although when things get really rough, I mumble, “Say goodbye to your relatives we’re going over.”
Once, I heard a Presbyterian minister say he heard God talking to him as clearly as a local telephone call. I really want to hear the voice of God. If not in person, at least on the answering machine. I figured Mary, a woman and a mother like me, was more approachable. I collected rosaries and Mary medals. These, I believed, as I tucked one in a backpack or handed another to a daughter, would protect us from harm. Bring good luck. It’s also safer, as Merle Haggard sings, than tossing horseshoes over my left shoulder.
I definitely heard myself say, “Holy Mary Mother of God,” in Meg’s old New York accent when a spring storm slammed our house so hard the framing groaned. I grab my swim bag and wade through the snowy driveway and sled the car over the hill to town.
The hardest part of the morning workout is over. I am here. My sister zips back and forth in one lane. Ike, a retired state trooper, is standing in another. I snap a cap on as he talks about the weather, says his cancer is in remission, but he’s still weak from the treatments and that his dog isn’t feeling too great, either. I tell him I’ll pray for him. Thank you, he says.
What Ike doesn’t know is that I’ll do it right away.
Today, I’m not sure I can sustain my usual 45 minutes. I need some help. So, I begin with a fast lap — Hail Mary full of grace, the Lord is with thee, blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus. Holy Mary Mother of God pray for Ike, now and in the hour of his need. I don’t say “death” considering he has been working so hard at staying alive.
Hail Mary, full of grace — I begin again, taking a deep breath, slowing down, falling into pace while praying, one line, or if I had one with me, one rosary bead at a time. I recite the Hail Mary prayer for nine friends and relatives who are sick or dying. And for Ike’s dog. There’s a Glory Be and an Our Father and a touch and turn. I glance at the clock. Time is passing. The next decade of ten rosary beads, which I do not clutch as I swim, are for our five children and their spouses. The grandchildren follow. I’m much lighter now in limb and spirit. I’ve covered just about all of the bases.
I veer off the script and pray again for our far-away son. Mary, hold him in the palm of your hand. I can’t make him happy, but I know Mary and Jesus, the angels of the pool, can. I believe that. Trust the unfolding mystery of life is not in the rosary prayers. The yoga teacher says it. It’s not a coincidence that I just “heard” it, is it? Breath. Swim. Trust. There is a holy spirit and it’s moving all the time, all around us, and in us.
I save the prayers for the dead for the cool down. The list is long. I have written over 500 obituaries for the local paper. (No, I can’t say one for each of them, just the ones who show up today.) Then, I count all the blessings of this life, or at least all that I can think of. Finally, — I float the length of the pool on my back, kicking, I twist and a glide, so very comfortable and so very content. I still have never heard God speak, or Mary either. Honestly? It would probably scare the wits out of me. Swimming with God is enough. Plenty. Thank you, I say to the lifeguard, and to whomever else is listening. Thank you.
