Going Under

If you read Toy Train New Toothbrush every week, you might get the impression that I’m a particularly accident-prone dad, especially after last week’s posting.  It’s not that I’m accident-prone.  I just have two boys.  And “boys” mean “pain”.  Sometimes that pain comes in family-sized, assortment packages.  You see, something I mentioned last week, as a side note, is, in fact, a story of its own.  I mentioned that one of the ways my “unmentionables” had been traumatized was while my son was jumping off the dock at the lake.  That, however, is not the only injury I endured.  Oh yes.  There’s more.

Almost every day, after work, and before dinner, we walk down to the neighborhood beach to take a swim in the lake.  The snakes that I’ve written about previously have, for anyone who’s concerned, consumed a nest full of baby birds and moved on to a less splashy and kid frequented home.  Now that they’re gone and the dock has been moved out to its mooring, it really is a great place to go and play with the family.  So, we go and swim.   My oldest son, lifejacket-clad and full of energy, and I play on the dock. 

Now, the water sport Brehm enjoys most is taking flying leaps off the dock into my waiting arms as I tread water.  I have affectionately dubbed this game, “Kick Daddy In the Face and Drown Him”.  It's all the rage.  I think that this sport is going to be added to the roster for the Beijing Olympics.  Now THAT will make great television.

This is what a round of the game looks like.  We run into the water. 

Let’s stop there. 

I must make note that my son is part polar bear and, despite having no visible body fat, would dive head first into a frozen lake if it meant he got to go swimming.  I, on the other hand, despite having quite visible body fat, prefer my lake water temperature to be somewhere between kiddy pool and Jacuzzi. 

OK…I continue. 

After running into the water, regardless of temperature, we have a race to the dock.  I use the term “race” very loosely since the object of this game is for my son to win.  Said "win" is then followed with copious amounts of "smack talk".  I’m not kidding.  We’re working on his being a good winner as well as a good loser, but he’s one competitive kid.  Here’s a real conversation:

(I’m working or cooking dinner and he walks in the room)

“Hey Dad!  I beat you!  I win!!”

“Uh…..what did you win at, Buddy?”

“I said ‘I win’ first!  I beat you!”

So, anyway…I let him win, and then he gets on the dock.  This is where the fun begins.  He crouches down and springs up and out toward me.  He looks kind of like one of those flying squirrels you see on the Discovery Channel.  Except, unlike those squirrels, this “squirrel” weighs 40 pounds and is laughing maniacally. Since he still hasn’t figured out how to go underwater without flushing his sinus and filling his lungs, MY job is to catch him, mid-air, and absorb his fall.  This, obviously, shoves me underwater.  Hard.  Most times, no matter how hard I blow out my nose, I get a pretty solid dunking.  Then, as I try and surface, he turns to swim back to the dock, thus kicking my still submerged face.  I haven’t bled yet, but I have high hopes for the future. 

So why do I do it?  Well…because I love my son and he can’t do it on his own.  Also, I’m a good swimmer.  You see, I grew up, as they say in Tennessee, “round these parts” and spent most of my life in the water or on boats.  So I know that, no matter how hard he shoves me under, I can come back up.  And when we race, I let him win because I know that, if I’m going to play with him, if I want to relate to him, I need to play with him at his level not mine.  It wouldn’t be any great accomplishment for a 31 year-old to beat a 4 ½ year-old in a swimming race.  So I voluntarily humble myself to swim with him and then I go under so he can stay up, knowing that, no matter what he dishes out to me, I’ll resurface. 

Lately I’ve been really moved by the simplicity of The Gospel.  Maybe it’s because, after years of making my faith complicated, I’m trying to get back to basics.  Maybe it’s because my oldest son is, as I write, attending his first Vacation Bible School and has been asking lots of questions.  There’s nothing like trying to explain what you believe to a child to get you to see how silly and “adult” your faith has become.  Because, when I boil it down, The Gospel is as simple as why I let my son drown me everyday and beat me at swimming.  The Bible says that Jesus, “Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness.  And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death - even death on a cross!” 

God knew that if he was going to have relationship with us, it had to be at our level not his.  We wouldn't have understood it any other way.

And so he came.

He came knowing that regardless of what we did, even to the point of death, he would be able to resurface.

He came, voluntarily, humbling himself, knowing that we can’t stay afloat on our own. Knowing that he would have to go under so we could stay up.