Tantrums for every smile.
I take my daughter to swimming lessons
Every week.
Yesterday was time for her to start going under water.
She’s been underwater a couple of times already,
But both were accidental and had her emerge coughing and crying.
Watching a two-year-old learn and discover the world really is something else.
They have this sense that they know everything,
While they really know nothing.
And it’s impossible, really, to communicate with them,
At least in many aspects.
You practically have to helplessly watch them make the mistakes of discovery to learn.
I often think this must be what it’s like for God when watching us stumble all the way through our fallen lives.
Tantrums for every smile.
And of course, they are always mad at you on some level,
Because in order to be a decent parent,
You have to hold them back from so much of what they not only want,
But really think they need.
Every candy display in every shop you ever go in
Has tantrums hiding behind the chocolate.
Every ice cream truck song,
Every ice cream truck has a whole new
Level of “you gotta be kidding me.”
I want that one.
I want that one.
I want that one.
I want that one.
(Repeated in rapid succession whilst pointing
To the Tinkerbell truck.)
Or else,
I want ice cream.
I want ice cream.
I want ice cream.
I want ice cream.
Along with whines and cries that make it seem a serious issue indeed.
And it’s not like you never cave.
On a sunny Saturday,
You want that easy smile and that joy of melted cream
On the playground of mercy.
You want that for your kid, of course you do.
Life is hard for us all,
Even for two-year-olds.
They gotta grow so much.
The energy we pour into them,
The greatest investment indeed.
But no doubt, it is often thankless.
And if you’re any good at it,
Sometimes you’re the bad guy.
2
This is like God is with us totally.
How many years
Have I wandered through life totally ungrateful?
Most of them is the answer.
Authentic gratitude
Takes something bordering on enlightenment.
People will say,
“I’m grateful,”
And not really mean it,
Not really feel it.
We’ve all done it.
But most of us are like my two-year-old with the ice cream trucks of life going by, teasing us.
We point to it
And say,
“I want that one.
I want that one.
I want that one.”
Over and over again,
And over and over again, we are denied until we are full of resentments,
Mad at God,
And in the mood of rebellion,
Nihilism, and revenge.
God probably knows that whatever is in that ice cream truck isn’t as important as we think it is,
And might actually be harmful to us ultimately.
But we don’t know that.
Our focus and worldview isn’t much broader than a two-year-old’s.
I mean, for instance,
God knows that perfect peace for us comes on the other side of our ego being dismantled.
That means whatever humbles us and diverts us from looking for answers from our ego-based selves,
Or thought-form identities, is actually good.
And whatever creates situations where our ego’s meet failure and limitation,
In order for us to question its supremacy,
And humble us into submission to presence or God, is actually good.
If we look at God as a loving parent,
That means for him to love us isn’t him caving in on a Saturday and buying us that ice cream cone.
For him to love us is to deny us over and over again until we learn,
Through our tantrums,
And disillusionment.
But we are no different than two-year-olds.
Eventually, we will grow up to understand that being humbled was good for us,
But it doesn’t feel like that when we are screaming our heads off in the moment.
3
Going underwater for the first time.
In the swimming lesson,
We hold our babies and toddlers,
Our fingers teaching them water buoyancy,
Holding their bellies,
Our thumbs underneath their armpits,
So that they are in a swimming position.
As we sing group songs and sway them in the water,
Singing a tune or a version of ring around the rosy.
Where at a certain point the song is ‘and we all go under.’
This is a strange moment,
Because though we’ve prepped them as best we can,
Taught them how to blow bubbles,
Etc.
There is no getting around the small trauma of going underwater for the first time.
It’s a scary world down there,
And no way to fully communicate not to breathe in.
That’s a lesson we all have to learn the hard way.
For weeks I’ve been prepping her for this day,
Saying to her,
“You ready to go underwater at your next swim lesson?”
She would say yes,
But probably not really know what that meant.
Although on some level, I’m sure she did.
The first time she did it the instructor held her,
And I watched with anticipation.
It almost seemed cruel, but I know it isn’t.
There are rites of passage in this life we all must go through,
First times for all of us to go underwater.
Until going underwater is no big deal at all,
Better to go through the scare of it,
The small trauma of it,
To overcome it,
And thus open up an entire new world.
“Ring-a-ring-a-rosies,
A pocket full of posies,
Swimming, swimming,
And we all go under!”
With that, the instructor submerged her and then allowed her to emerge again.
Shocked silence and then a big cry,
The scariness of it, poor thing.
The instructor celebrated and instructed me to do the same.
Important not to reflect her panic,
Working against parental instincts,
Teaching her and teaching us that just because something is hard and scary doesn’t mean it’s not good.
It’s very good.
After a bit of recovery which happened quick,
The instructor did it again,
And this time she emerged without crying at all,
A little whine but no big deal.
I took over and we swayed in the water.
I said to her,
“You ready to go under again?”
To my shock, she said yes.
A new world she had access to now beckoned.
“Ring-a-ring-a-rosies,
A pocket full of posies,
Swimming, swimming,
And we all go under!”
I dipped her under and quickly back up again,
And she had no issue at all.
She learned how to do it.
Amazing!
This is just like us when letting our egos die.
It’s scary as hell,
To understand that this thing we thought we were,
Not only was never us,
But was also demonic in nature and keeping us from the life we truly want,
Was feeding us wrong instructions,
Was allowing us to go back to the ice cream truck every five minutes,
And was making sure that we never went underwater,
Into the realm of presence.
4
It’s good for God to kind of force us under,
With a little bit of loving cruelty,
Or a love that seemed cruel,
But wasn’t cruel at all.
Blessed are the meek indeed,
Because if life works it out for you that you never need go under,
And if the ice cream truck is always an option,
Then you remain stuck,
In a limited view of the world.
God blesses us when we don’t get what we want,
And when we are forced under.
Breathing into water,
Into a coughing tantrum that is fairly painful,
But what a worthy trade.
For now,
We are free to swim deep down,
To explore new worlds,
To see life below life,
Where a whole new spiritual ecosystem exists.
Where we don’t measure success by worldly possessions,
Or by who is hanging out with us,
But by presence alone.
Freedom becomes the only metric that matters,
An inner freedom.
Where we are seemingly breathing underwater,
Swimming in the depths day in and day out.
Only coming to the surface for quick breaths,
As our hunger to explore the infinite becomes insatiable,
Our thirst for light,
Unquenchable.
And that person we were that was terrified to go underwater,
A faded memory,
Like a figment of a dream.
