Coral Castle/Breathing Underwater

Coral Castle/Breathing Underwater

“The sea crept higher, till it reached my door.
And I knew, then, there was neither flight, nor death, nor drowning.

That when the sea comes calling, you stop being neighbors,
Well acquainted, friendly-at-a-distance neighbors,

And you give your house for a coral castle,
And you learn to breathe underwater.”

You may recognize these concluding words of the poem “Breathing Under Water,” by Sister Carol Bieleck, RSCJ, if you’ve read the fabulous book of the same title by Franciscan Father Richard Rohr, about Spirituality and the 12 Steps.

In a Blue Theology prayer book of “Ocean Devotions,” this one could be my Call to Worship.

Here’s the whole poem.  Just read it and let it “sink” in.  I then add a few reflections, including a cool idea about how coral itself breathes underwater, and helps us all breathe as well. 

But, really, the poem sinks/floats on its own – it might be best just to let the deep mystery be, leave that tender wet moment alone.

Breathing Under Water

I built my house by the sea.
Not on the sands, mind you;
not on the shifting sand.
And I built it of rock.

A strong house
by a strong sea.
And we got well acquainted, the sea and I.
Good neighbors.
Not that we spoke much.
We met in silences.
Respectful, keeping our distance,
but looking our thoughts across the fence of sand.
Always, the fence of sand our barrier,
always, the sand between.

And then one day,
-and I still don’t know how it happened –
the sea came.
Without warning.

Without welcome, even
Not sudden and swift, but a shifting across the sand like wine,
less like the flow of water than the flow of blood.
Slow, but coming.
Slow, but flowing like an open wound.
And I thought of flight and I thought of drowning and I thought of death.
And while I thought the sea crept higher, till it reached my door.
And I knew, then, there was neither flight, nor death, nor drowning.
That when the sea comes calling, you stop being neighbors,
Well acquainted, friendly-at-a-distance neighbors,
And you give your house for a coral castle,
And you learn to breathe underwater.

-Rohr uses the poem’s imagery to offer, in his words, “some underwater breathing lessons for a culture and a church that often appears to be drowning without knowing it,” trapped in the rising tide of brokenness and addiction, needing to surrender to God.  Rohr calls the 12 Steps “12 Breathing Lessons.”  Having had a spiritual awakening, “We can breathe, and we can even breathe under water, because the breath of God is everywhere.”

-“Breathing under water doesn’t make sense,” writes Fr. Arthur MacKay in a lecture based on Rohr’s book.  “God acting on us does not make sense– in a world where we thought we succeeded, or failed on OUR OWN…  It is the opposite of what we expect, a paradox.”  Rohr calls that paradox healing, salvation, recovery.  

-Why is a castle made of coral so intriguing?  I had a fishbowl in college with a fabulous castle my goldfish swan in and through.  My mother read me Robert Louis Stevenson’s  A Child’s Garden of Verses, and I can still recite the poem of a little boy dreaming as he sends boats of stick and leaves down river; “Green leaves a floating, Castles of the foam, Boats of mine a-boating, Where will all come home?”  Castles of the foam.  I want to live there in that mysterious wet palace.

-Talk about mystery – coral.  It does breathe underwater.  It looks like rock, forms solid reefs.  But coral is an animal.  And coral has its own in-house food service – ocean algae, a plant, lives in symbiosis with and within the coral.  Animal and plant each ensure the other will live – structure and safety for the plant, built-in food for the coral animal.  And while coral reefs cover only 0.0025 percent of the oceanic floor, those resident plants inside the coral generate much of the Earth’s oxygen.  Breathing for themselves underwater, corals also help create the oxygen that keeps us alive. 

Another reason to move into the coral castle.  There we can breathe.

I post these ocean devotions every Wednesday here and on Facebook.  Dive in with me!