“The Power of the Float”

         One of my favorite activities is to float; but I find myself, especially in unfamiliar waters, not always able to let go and relax. I get anxious, worried about what might be beneath me or what might be coming my way; and when I do, it isn’t long before I began to sink.

         “Floating Takes Faith,” is the name of a book of essays written by Rabbi David Wolpe. In the essay with this title, Wolpe writes that even something as simple as honoring Shabbat can be hard. He writes that swimming requires us to kick, stroke, and move while floating asks us to be still, to trust the buoyancy of the water. In the ocean, he says, the swimmer propels his or her body under the wave but the floater rises on the crest. “Sim­i­lar­ly, the one who works on him­self or her­self all week should aim to float on Shab­bat. Float­ing will car­ry you high­er than the often-stren­u­ous effort of the week…Shabbat asks us to trust the wave of God’s world.”

         Trusting the waves in an ocean is not always easy. Neither is always trusting God. Many times I’d prefer to swim over the choppy water, dive through the turbulence, not simply stretch out and ride it out. But faith requires us to believe in the goodness of God, to trust that even in the high or unsettled waters, we can look to God.

         Dr. Jeremiah Wright tells the story of going out with his family on a boat for a day of deep sea fishing. After a couple of hours, he noticed that his eight year old daughter was missing. Frantically, they searched the boat only to find she was not anywhere on board. The crew finally decided that she must have fallen off the boat and the coast guard was called. Within minutes a rescue boat arrived. Dr. Wright joined the search crew and they began making concentric circles outward, with the charter boat as their center. The circles grew wider and wider, and then about 45 minutes after they started they spotted his daughter, lying on her back, bobbing in the water. When they got to her, they cut the engines off, and when they did, what they heard was this, an eight year old child singing a little song, floating on her back in the middle of the ocean, seemingly not even worried.

         When they got to her in the boat, and after they knew she was all right, the captain asked Dr. Wright’s daughter what she thought about when she fell off the boat.

         And she said, “Daddy always told me if I ever got in trouble when we were in the water, to just turn over on my back and float and to sing this song so I wouldn’t be afraid…”Jesus loves the little children, all the children of the world.”

         And the Captain said, “So you weren’t afraid?”                          

         And she said, “I was a little, but I knew that Daddy would be looking out for me, and that he would come and get me as soon as he knew I was gone.”

         Whatever waters you find yourself in this week, remember that you can trust that you are not alone, that you will not drown. And, in this last summer holiday week, go ahead, lean into the waters, close your eyes. Float.



You are the light of the world.

Yours,

Lynne