April 29, 2026 “Watch how she puts on her cap.” The lifeguard/swim instructor said that to a small group of pre-teen girls as I started gearing up to swim laps. In my youth, I was a competitive swimmer for five years. Though I hadn’t done a lap since 1997, I decided to try adult lap swimming last week. While I wouldn’t call my first time back in the water a “swimming success,” I didn’t drown, and I was starting to get a rhythm just as it was time to get out of the pool. So, I went back a couple more times. The third time I went swimming, there was a small group of pre-teen girls taking a lesson in the lanes farthest from me. It was just after I set my glasses on the deck at the end of my lane that the instructor/lifeguard told the girls to watch me put on my cap. I was very confused. I put on my swim cap in what I thought was “the normal way” – the way my teammates and I had done day after day through those five years of competitive swimming in the late 1990s. After I put on the cap, one of the girls instantly squealed, “I want to try it!” After they resumed swimming, I asked the lifeguard how they put on their caps. She explained that they help each other do it, one stretching it over the other’s head. “How did that skill not get handed down?” I thought. I just took it for granted that everyone knew how to put on a cap that way. But those kids were never taught that way. It can be the same way with our faith. Especially now that my son, Jake, is an older teen, it’s easy to assume he knows what I know about Jesus, the Bible, prayer, theology… It’s easy to assume someone else taught him, just like someone else taught me. It’s easy to think that if I’m living my faith, he’ll just absorb that faith and live it, too – like it’ll pass to him solely through osmosis and the Holy Spirit. While the Holy Spirit does amazing things, the Spirit works most through others. Someone needs to teach my son. His father and I need to teach him with both our words and our actions. His parish needs to teach him. His community needs to teach him. That’s how he’ll continue to put on Christ. |
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