I was about six strokes from the finish of a 100 yard butterfly race in an age-group competition this past weekend when my arms gave out. The last two strokes looked like I was drowning. I could barely get my arms out of the water. Fifty-five years ago I was a competent butterfly swimmer. Now, not so much. On one level I can attribute my near collapse to age, not enough training, or an inflated (and misguided) perception of my swimming prowess. A combination of all those things were probably in play, but as I learn more about how muscles in the body work, or don’t work, I have determined what the primary culprit was:
Lactic acid. When the lactic acid reaches a critical point, parts of the body – especially the legs and arms – shut down.
I mention this, not to report on my challenges in swimming the butterfly, but as a kind of allegory of what is happening in our world today. Our psyches are being filled with the equivalent of lactic acid. The Trump Administration calls it “flooding the zone”. So many orders, so many policy changes, so much vengeance and so little empathy – that people are shutting down. Many people feel that they can’t move – their bodies, their spirits, their minds – either can’t move or don’t know where to move to. Or they try to shut it all out. A kind of psychic paralysis sets in.
This psychic paralysis is exactly the point of the malevolence of those who are eager to flood the zone. If people can’t move, or feel emotionally stuck, the purveyors of punishment can run circles around those who are feeling paralyzed, and can more easily carry out the flurry of shut downs, deportations, firings, threats and whatever is next.
While I may not have learned or been adequately prepared to fend off lactic acid buildup, I now know how best to get rid of it. Swim down – slowly and easily. Drink lots of water. That effectively washes it away. It helped me get ready for my next race that day, a shorter one, and I did better. No lactic acid buildup.
Washing away psychic lactic acid build-up is trickier. In earlier posts I have mentioned that I have been engaging in a weekly Wednesday sabbath – in an attempt to remove myself, for a day, from the flood zone. I fast from food, from any monetary transaction, and from the media. Fasting from the media – not listening or ready the daily news, is the hardest of the three. I am discovering how attached I am to hearing and reading – and reacting, to what is going on.
I am also discovering that the sabbath fast has the effect of swimming down. It washes away some of the psychic lactic acid. I find that I am less reactive to the flooding zones, and am better prepared for the next deluge. The fast also enables me to make a distinction between the flooding water that drowns and the living water that not only provides sustenance, but is carried by life giving sources: compassionate friends and communities, moral and spiritual foundations that offer hope. And – this is critically important – the fast helps, if not guides, me in discerning how best to take the next action.
For me, Jesus offers a life-giving example of taking sabbath break. Nearly every day throughout his three year ministry he was hounded, if not flooded, with people seeking his wisdom, his healing, his hope; and by others who were after him because he posed a threat to the religious and Roman order. Whenever he could, Jesus stole off to a lonely place for silence, for prayer, and to recommit himself to his mission and to God. His daily life could be depicted in a triptych: his sabbath moments were the center panel flanked by picture of him offering compassion, care and teaching; and the other picture is filled with those who wanted to do him in.
His spiritual discipline, in the face of unrelenting human need and human ugliness, kept him free from psychic and spiritual lactic acid. Whether we are professed Christians or not, we would do well to engage in practices that both limit psychic lactic acid and learn how best to wash it away when in shows up. So we can figure out how best to respond to ever more opening floodgates.
