Minister’s Letter 5/15/2024
Dear Friends,
How is your heart as you are reading this newsletter today? Are you taking time to take good care of yourself? There is so much discussion of self-care these days. What does that look like for you? Often it is suggested that we have to pay for things in order to do self-care. We get suggestions like pedicures, spa days, haircuts, massages, etc. Those are all wonderful things to do for ourselves, and purchasing things is not the only way we take care of ourselves. I wonder if coming to church is a self-care practice for you. I wonder if reading while resting in a cozy chair or on a couch is self-care for you. I wonder if a walk along the lake is self-care for you. There are so many possibilities. Additionally, I have read some great critiques that self-care is an insufficient framework. We need to additionally think about community-care. What are the things we do for one another that are nurturing? What are the ways we engage in practices that care for the collective? This might look like sharing food with friends and family. It might look like participating in mutual aid efforts. It might be engaging in a ministry or committee at church. What else? What can community care look like?
One of my key self-care practices is swimming. I love, love, love being in the water. This has been true since I was a little kid. I grew up near the ocean and my family spent very little time going on vacation because we had vacation just down the road. We spent weekend after weekend set up on the sand and then playing for hours in the water. I learned how to swim at the town pool. I took lessons many summers in a row, improving my swimming skills. My favorite thing to do was to see how long I could hold my breath and get as far as I could under the water. As an asthmatic kid, it was good exercise for my lungs and a fun challenge. I remember having “tea-parties” under the water with my siblings. We would go under and then say things to each other and do our best to understand what each other were saying. We would come up for air and share what we thought we heard. It was basically a game of underwater telephone. Almost never would we get it right. Every time it was hilarious.
These days water serves a bit of a different purpose. I spend a few hours every week swimming laps at the gym. I’m by no means an expert swimmer, but I love doing it. It is a time to completely clear my mind. As I swim up and down the pool, I count the lengths. I swim about 2400 yards each time, so that is quite a number of lengths to keep track of. It has become a prayerful practice for me. The ritualistic nature of counting, the clearing of my mind, the movement through the water, the pushing of my body, all of these things together create a discipline that washes over my whole being. I need not be the best swimmer to gain the benefits of the practice. Being mediocre at things, whether it is art, exercising, singing, or any other practice, need not make the experience of it any less meaningful. It is about finding the things that feed your spirit. Swimming feeds mine. What feeds yours? We all deserve these practices. I would even suggest, we all need them.
I’d love to hear more about what nurtures you. Maybe you’d tell me in an email. Maybe you’d tell me in person.
Looking forward to celebrating each other’s self-care, community-care, and spiritual practices,
