swimming sacred

The older I get, the more I believe in spirituality. And not spirituality as anything organized. And how the lack of organization is okay. For me. My parents were raised in differing faiths and both moved away from practice as they got older. So when they had me and time came for a religious decision they decided not to decide. They left God up to me. And, when I was growing up in a primarily Christian, often Catholic area, this felt frustrating. It didn't seem okay to be a misfit, at least not in this arena. I didn't know what I was and that was more troubling than I think my parents expected it to be.

It seems odd now to think about being distraught over a lack of religious alignment. Most of my friends now don't attend any kind of worship service. But, when you're a kid, and all of your friends are getting dressed up and going off to some big building every weekend it's easy to feel left out. Now, most of these same friends that were shuffling off to a church while I was playing in my backyard, have since told me about the conflict they felt when they left their faith. Since I technically never "left" anything I feel like I can't exactly relate. Sure we're both in the same place now, but our paths were different. I never had to go through the turmoil of leaving something that was a big part of my life. I never questioned God because I never devoted a lot of time, at least once a week, to thinking about Him. He was there, He wasn't there...it didn't really affect my day to day.

I guess I'm still a little ambivalent. But what I do feel, beyond God, is a sense of spirituality. I felt it today when I was going for a 9 am swim at Barton Springs. The Sunday morning crowd at Barton Springs is a religious bunch. They do their laps and dangle their toes and there's a huge sense of fellowship. I lay in the sun and it was quiet and honest and peaceful. It felt sacred. And it wasn't about God, at least not directly. It was about the letting go and the acceptance or faith that everything was good.

I've realized, thanks in some sense to my family, that my relationship with something bigger than myself can be just that, my relationship. And while sometimes it's easy to feel that left out feeling when people talk about their religion, I remind myself that not being in their specific faith doesn't take anything away from mine. I actually sometimes feel lucky to have found my spirituality in a way that was organic, a way that made sense for me, instead of struggling to squeeze parts of myself into something that didn't exactly fit. Now, I can be in religious service every day. In swimming, in working in the yard, in cooking, in listening to music, and in my moments of true connection with friends and family. It's pretty miraculous. And okay. And good.