A swimming teacher tells how...
Illustration
Object:
A swimming teacher tells how difficult it is to teach four-year-old children to swim. The
teacher realized, on his very first day of work, how terrifying it is for a four-year-old to
go from standing on the side of the pool, shivering in a towel, to floating in the water (let
alone swimming). The only way to do it is gradually. You have to support young children
in your arms, slowly bending your knees until the kids discover the property of
buoyancy: that they can indeed trust the water to hold them up, if they position their body
the right way. Yet without a teacher -- without someone to take them from point A to
point B, whispering to them all the while that it's going to be all right -- it's well-nigh
impossible. Despite all the folklore that says you can teach children by the "sink or swim"
method, it almost never happens that way.
So, too, with any journey of healing or recovery: as trite as it may sound to say it, the only way to get anywhere is one step at a time. And, the most important step of all is the first. That's the risk -- the challenge -- the leap -- of faith. Jesus says to us, as he said to the lepers, "Go." He doesn't tell us what the journey will look like, what awaits us around each turn. He just says, "It's time to get started."
So, too, with any journey of healing or recovery: as trite as it may sound to say it, the only way to get anywhere is one step at a time. And, the most important step of all is the first. That's the risk -- the challenge -- the leap -- of faith. Jesus says to us, as he said to the lepers, "Go." He doesn't tell us what the journey will look like, what awaits us around each turn. He just says, "It's time to get started."
