Article June 23, 1980 Issue

Swimming lessons

ROSALIE E. DUNBAR

Clinging to the edge of the pool, puffing and gasping, I remembered how I'd once thought that athletes were people who worshiped their bodies. How I'd scorned them for what I thought was their limited outlook! As I considered with dread the need to continue diving practice, I was struck by my feeling of limitation and wondered if maybe the flipper was now on the other foot.

Perhaps I'd overlooked the fact that athletics provide us with an excellent opportunity to overcome the restricting belief that man lives in and is governed by matter.

As I pondered my dread of the water pressure at the bottom of the pool, I remembered Mrs. Eddy's statement: "Jesus of Nazareth was the most scientific man that ever trod the globe. He plunged beneath the material surface of things, and found the spiritual cause." Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, p. 313; We are often called on to plunge "beneath the material surface of things," in work and family affairs, I reasoned. So this swimming exercise shouldn't fill me with misery. Instead, I could approach it as an opportunity to express more spirituality. Turning away from material parameters to God, the source of my identity and capabilities, was exactly what I needed—and not just in the pool, either.

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June 23, 1980
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