Rev. Susan Maginn
Swimming in the Deep End
September 7, 2008
Wy'east UU Congregation
Portland, OR

We are born into the deep end. From the watery womb where we need not bother with breath, we are pushed into the deep end of life, assured of a few unsettling bits: You will not know when or how you will die and you will not be told for what purpose you live. In some of life's waters we will find comfort and in others we will struggle to tread along the air's surface. In different waters there are different lessons, if we will but listen.

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Lesson #1
I am walking off the shore into the ocean and it is as warm as bath water. I try to stand but am randomly pushed down by the waves. I'm a Midwestern girl. I come from land locked country. I didn't grow up around the water, much less water that has the power to knock me around. So I had to drink a good deal of salt water before I realized that if I wanted to stay in the water, I was going to have to relax enough to start playing by rules of these waves. I start jumping into the waves as they come, right as they begin to crest, diving into the base and letting it crash on my back. Dive and swim and stand and wait and dive and swim and stand and wait and...What's that? It looks quiet out there, even peaceful, out there before the water turns into waves and...BAM!..swim and swim and stand and...there... I see that past the breaking waves there is stillness. I start swimming out to past the waves. It is with some trepidation that I swim into the deep water, inflate my lungs, lie on the surface and float, rising and falling with the breath of the ocean. And while waiting for JAWS to arrive, I imagine being in the deepest part of the ocean, with miles of water beneath, home to the pre-historic, with hills of water arching around me and sometimes lifting me to where I could check for shore. I imagine being to far out that I could not see the shore. How would it feel if I did not know which way was home?

How much of my life have I spent resisting the waves as they come instead of learning about the waves so that I could play in their rhythm and intensity? Waves of some inconvenient news about how our nanny is getting married and moving to Italy, or how our car needs repairs totaling money we don't have, or the roof needs replacing. Or what about the waves that are so strong that they threaten survival? The waves that bring chronic illness or chronic poverty; the waves that bring betrayals and losses that knock us down and an under toe greets us. Can we stand up again? Do we stand with defiance and resentment and wait for the next blow to come or do we somehow find the joy that lets us play in all this. These waves come into our life and we can stand strong and stiff and be knocked around or we can jump and dive and let the waves teach us another way.

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Lesson #2
Finally my children are sleeping. It is just before sunset and I use my key to enter the hotel patio where I can see the ocean. I easily slip into the hot tub water, created to comfort, not challenge the human body: just clean enough, just shallow enough, just warm enough. I relax in the strange security of this fortress. Suddenly, the wind changes direction. The waves grow violent and the horizon darkens. Soon I am in the midst of a massive coastal storm with cold rain and wind on my face. Determined to relax, I stay submerged. A hotel employee soon runs outside, crouched, as if this physical position would keep her from getting wet or being blown over by the strong wind. She tells me lightening had been spotted and it is my time to come inside. I crouched and ran inside to my hotel room, to relax at the sight of my sleeping children while I was still dripping with hot and cold water.

Just when you think that happiness is when all goes according to plan, just when you think you can buy security, just when you think that enough guards and keys are what peace is all about. Just when you think that relaxation is made of high walls and temperature controlled waters, then weather happens. The plans I made that evening were about getting a much-needed break from my children. The bigger plan was to rediscover true peace in the familiarity of their sleeping breath when the coastal storm blew me back to them.

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Lesson #3
She said, "It is like when you are caught in seaweed." She said, "When you panic, you try to swim to the surface for air and as you move upward, you only tighten the grip of the seaweed on your leg. It is only when you can stop your panicking mind, only when you can relax enough to float down into the center of the sea weed, into the heart of the enemy. Only then will it let you go, away from the shadowed depths, toward the surface where you live."

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Lesson #4
I remember when I was a girl I would imagine the ocean and the waves and wonder where to waves started. I imagined that in the center of the ocean there was a giant rock that pulsed like a heart and it was the pulsing of the rock that made the waves.

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Lesson #5
Noah was prepared. He was told it was coming. He was given divine instructions for how to build and populate his ark. He was told the wickedness of the people made those people disposable. They had their warnings to change their ways. Noah was told that God had had enough. These people did not know how to live in holiness. They did not know how to live in right relationship with God and so it was time for this world to go. A new world of promise was gestating and could be born after the flood. A new world was coming and Noah was the man for the job. Noah believed what he heard and proceeded with faith waiting for the destruction. But then the day came when the waters rose and the ark was launched and Noah kept his promise and floated away into the deep, watching so many drown, watching all that he had ever known sink below the surface, knowing he was saved but not knowing why, not really.

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Lesson #6
I am standing on small feet and nervous legs at the side of a pool. My father is treading water with his encouraging eyes and arms open. I watch and wait and look down at the shallow end and hear his voice again and then, finally and for no good reason, I fling my body into the deep end, trusting my father's love would keep me buoyant.

How wonderful it is when we see the deep water and there is someone there to catch us, someone to ease us into the depth, someone who knows our fears and our hopes, someone who clearly is skilled in the ways of the deep and can teach us so that someday, when we are ready, we can trust our own body to say good bye and tread alone in the deep end. And if we are lucky, we will remember to open our arms and encourage another to jump.

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Lesson #7
I say, "How's your day going?" And my friend tells me how he attended a baptism this morning. The ceremony took place in the river, the Willamette River. I imagine a man's body gently ushered into the water, washing his life of all that has ever kept him from God and delivering it to the sea.

Us religious types bless with holy water. What makes the blessing water holy? Is it the intention of the person giving and receiving the blessing? Is it the prayer that I said in the middle of the night, over a styrofoam cup full of tap water at the bedside of a dying woman who asked to be baptized? Is it the spirit of God being breathed into the water at the moment of a prayer? Or is the water holy, long before we ever were. Long before humans think we are so bold as to claim the power to purify to make holy?

Does water, by its very nature, with all its power and depth, welcome us always with a disclaimer: With this water you will be afraid. With this water you will be humble. With this water you will be quenched. With this water you will be made whole - again and again.

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May we pray...
We come together today with blessings of our life and lift up our yearnings for wholeness. We give thanks for all those experiences that have given us a strong and open heart and we ask that the gifts of our strength might be a blessing upon the world in broken times. May we be so brave to see that our own strengths are not our own, they are intended to be gifts for all. May we shine on and on. Amen.