Saturday, August 24, 2024
Feast of Saint Bartholomew, Apostle
(click here to listen to or read today’s scriptures)
Swimming stories
He showed me Jerusalem coming down out of heaven, radiant, clear as crystal, twelve angels stationed at its twelve gates. The foundation for the city walls rested on twelve courses of stones, on which were inscribed the twelve names of the twelve Apostles of the Lamb.
And there on one of those courses of stones was the name BARTHOLOMEW!
Your friends make known, O Lord, the glorious splendor of Your Kingdom.
Our friend Bart was a swimming coach, and he spent many afternoons in our apartment pool teaching Miles the start-up skills of swimming, inspiring them to dive to the bottom, reach for his arms when they thought they couldn’t make it, and begin the eventually simple and unforgettable ways to tread water, to swim several strokes, and even learn to save a friend when the friend needs saving in the water.
It will be Jasper’s turn soon enough. And my own turn came many years ago.
The Lord is just in all his ways and holy in all his works.
I shivered on the dock at Lincoln Lakes several summers in a row when I was just a wee little lad, skinny and freezing in the morning air. But gradually I treaded water, and I swam. The two backstrokes, the side stroke, and the breaststroke. I learned to turn my head and breathe while I swam off away from the diving board, arm after arm after arm.
By then I felt like an expert, and so Mom suggested I enroll in the junior life saving class. We seventh graders learned with the high school kids in the same class, same teacher, same skills. This thrilled me, to be with the big boys and girls. My friends and I passed the class with flying colors. I was suddenly a Red-Cross official Junior Life Saver, although the jobs during summer swimming went to the high school seniors.
Mom’s friend Norma and her son Gary, one of my best friends, came swimming with us. Mom had sewn my lifesaving badge onto my swimming suit. Gary and I frolicked in the water, while our moms sat on a beach blanket and talked their way through a peaceful summer afternoon.
Gary climbed up on my shoulders and dove off. I climbed up on his shoulders then, and I dove off. But my head slammed into the sand and I came up screaming. My neck was jammed, and I could barely move.
Mom heard me and screamed herself, but before she could get over to me, Jeff, the strongest new lifeguard from our class, was by my side. He was careful but maneuvered me up to the edge of the beach. Mom spread out her blanket. Jeff laid me down on it.
The Lord is near to all who call upon him, to all who call upon him in truth.
Gary looked stricken. I knew I might have broken my neck. It happened to other good swimmers. Later I read about Joni Eareckson, born a month before me and avid swimmer until, at age 17, she also dove into shallow water and became paralyzed from her shoulders down. For life.
I couldn’t believe how quickly Jeff was with me. I didn’t see him leap out of his chair, swim strong strokes over to where Gary and I were both crying, but I did feel his strong arms around me, and I remember how grateful I was, even though embarrassed to be such an idiot just two weeks after getting my own lifesaving badge.
Ambulance attendants put me on a stretcher, took me to the hospital, where emergency room docs x-rayed my neck, and our family Dr. Hamm, whose office was just across the street from Abraham Lincoln Memorial Hospital, told Mom that I was OK. A fool, yes, but a fool with a bruised, but not broken neck.
Let all your works give you thanks, O Lord. Let them speak always of the glory of your Kingdom, and speak of your might.
(Revelation 21, Psalm 145, John 1)
(posted at www.davesandel.net)
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