"Beauty confronts us with the requirement that we place ourselves among...the redeemers, the leaders in the protection of life. Once you have seen the bush on fire, you are not going to get out of the assignment unless you close your eyes to the beauty.... [You] either have to close your eyes or go back to Egypt and set the people free." - Rev. Dr. Rebecca Parker, "Rising to the Challenge of Our Times"

Wednesday, March 22, 2006

kick

My swimming routine this morning: swim 4 laps, kick 2, swim 4, kick 2, swim 4, kick 2, swim 4, swim 2 for something wild and different at the end. As recently as last week I was deeply irritated with the kicking drill since it seemed to be producing so little forward propulsion that I could have drifted to the other side of the pool in the wind currents in about the same time.

THEN on Monday I started to stretch out and tilt forward more, and it seemed like the kicking produced detectible motion. And THEN, today, during the last kicking round, a little voice said why don't you kick about twice as fast as you have been? and I said, can we really do that? and instead of going kick...kick...kick...kick... I started going kickkickkickkick, and my feet made a very satisfying paddlewheel steamboat-like sound. The little voice said "Toot Toot!"

1 comment:

limes said...

A gold star for persistence!