rowing the single and centering prayer

I have resolved to learn how to row a single shell this summer. I have made many maiden voyages, year after year, but until this year have never found the discipline to keep at it so that it becomes relatively comfortable.

I am rowing what I call a "skinny single", that is, a racing single shell, and in about ten days I have progressed from an ever-so-tentative push away from the dock with an iron grip on my oars, to the point where I can go up and down the creek and only have two or three "uh-oh, I'm about to tip over" experiences. This is progress!

This morning as I was contemplating the glassy water (which turned into ripples as the wind came up) I thought about how learning to row the single shell - perhaps learning anything new that requires such concentration - requires at the same time a complete letting go. If I think too much about anything, I get tense and things go haywire. Kind of like when, in centering prayer, I indulge yourself in following whatever pops into the prayer time. Instead of being open to God in prayer, I end up on some tangent. Interesting, perhaps, but that distraction is for the other 23 hours of the day.

Suddenly the prayer time has been consumed with, as Thomas Keating would say, following the thought down the river, rather than gently returning to the sacred word.

Suddenly the smooth rhythm of my oars and the send of my shell are disrupted by too much thinking. Just do it, let the boat do its work and get out of its way.

Prayer and rowing. Two of my favorite activities!