Weightless

"Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light." Matt. 11:28-30

My dive buddy recently had a revelation of weightlessness that changed the way he dives. Due to poor instruction (not his current instructor or dive shop) he was severely overweighted for diving. Instead of focusing on my buddy's specific needs for weighting, the instructor had burdened him with unnecessary loads and created an atmosphere of undue effort and fatigue that plagued his every move. At the end of a dive day he found himself exhausted and physically pained by the strain of exertion. By assessing his specific needs (body composition, wetsuit thickness, air consumption, and swimming patterns) my dive buddy was able to eliminate over 20 lbs. of unneeded diving weights. After his first unladen dive, he was amazed at how great he felt and how much more he enjoyed the dive.

Peak performance buoyancy is a sought after skill in diving. Upper and lower echelons of divers are distinguished by their proficiency in mastering buoyancy. The desired end-state is to be neutrally buoyant - neither sinking nor floating. Aerospace and scientific diving programs invest billions in designing environments that foster the study of neutral buoyancy. Whether in a Neutral Buoyancy Laboratory (NBL) or in parabolic flight, weightlessness is the desired state.

We think of weightlessness as an effortless state, but it requires much discipline and fine tuning to perfect. A neutrally buoyant state is fine tuned by breathing. When you inhale, you rise. When you exhale, you sink. You control your weightlessness through continual breathing. If you hold your breath at any time, you cease to be neutrally buoyant and you will struggle needlessly to stay in place. I mention in another blog, the comparison of breathing continuously to prayer. The analogy stands. A life navigated through fine tuning is a life governed by prayer.

Weight distribution is another important element of neutral buoyancy. A diver can have the correct amount of weight and if not distributed properly can complicate a dive. Weight distribution varies according to activity. If I want to be in a vertical position to take photographs, I will distribute my weight differently than if I am performing a search and recovery horizontally along the seafloor. Proper weight distribution saves energy and increases focus on the tasks at hand. How I structure and proportion my responsibilities and tasks in life impacts how efficiently I navigate and focus. If I have a disproportionate amount of weight in one area I will find myself off kilter and struggling to remain in the correct orientation for the tasks at hand. If I am carrying too much center weight I will go "belly up" making for an uncomfortable and fatiguing experience. The goal is to adjust your weight for maximum comfort and minimum fatigue. This varies between divers and there is no set formula to follow. We each have different strengths and weaknesses in life. There is no set formula for how to divvy those up. What works for one person will not work for another. We must each distribute weight according to the manner in which we are gifted and empowered for maximum performance. There are times when others look at my weight distribution in life and think it inordinately disproportionate and they would be right, if they were carrying the weight. But my weight is distributed to balance my strengths and weaknesses. When I look for help or a community to "yoke" to, I am looking for those who would help me to balance my strengths and weaknesses without unduly encumbering my journey. Sometimes, due to no fault of their own, people are not weighted properly to accompany my dive. I cannot help carry their burden and they are not weighted to carry mine. And so we seek out those who would facilitate and streamline our load.

Streamlining increases speed and ease of movement by minimizing resistance to the flow of water. Streamlining decreases the amount of energy spent as you swim, makes your kicks more efficient, and minimizes damage to the aquatic environment. Your hoses, gauges, and accessories are all clipped in place and close to your body. Instruments do not swing around kicking up dirt, hitting other divers or elusive to your grasp when needed. Everything is in its proper place.  When we streamline in life we have our gear together and tucked in its proper place. I, by no means, have this perfected. But I do have great family and friends who tell me when I need to straighten my gear out, get my gauges in place and hoses clipped in. I have also been in the uncomfortable position of telling others when they need to get their lives assorted. It has to be done. We hate to admit it, but our protruding issues affect everything around us. We kick up dirt, clouding our vision and all those accompanying us. We inadvertently hit and inhibit other divers. And ultimately we sabotage our own performance. Streamlining is about attention to detail and organization.

Visualization is a key factor in perfecting weightlessness. Envision what you want to do. If you cannot envision it, chances are you will never do it. Vision is essential to accomplishing any goal. When I played basketball, I was taught to envision my shots as I made them; to see them executed flawlessly. When I design products at work, I must see an end result in my head. When I make decisions I must have an internal concept of where that will lead me. Vision is essential to performance, but it is useless if we never act on it. I must envision what I want and then take the steps to actualize it.

And then there is fitness - get rid of the fat. Lean mass sinks meaning less external weight is needed for neutral buoyancy. The fitter you are, the more fine tuned you will be. Fat floats, encumbering the dive and requiring the addition of external weight to make the diver weightless. Not to mix analogies, but think of a hot air balloon flight. We release ballasts to maintain our desired altitude. A controlled weightless flight actually requires careful management of your resources. So whether you are diving or flying, you have to get rid of the excess useless weight.

My favorite book as a child was John Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress. I imagine it was the manner in which Bunyan made the journey of salvation comprehensive to an 8 year old. I read it over and over to myself and then read it to my little sister. I had an illustrated copy and I can still remember all the pictures that accompanied Christian's journey from sin to heaven. The scene at the cross is an image of the pilgrim, Christian, releasing the weight and burden of sin. It falls from his shoulders and tumbles down the hill. Many of us have experienced the release of the burden of sin. It is liberating and freeing. But what use is releasing your weight if you are then incapable of navigating the waters of life? We do no good to others if we are floating and drifting away on the surface while they struggle to pry themselves from the ocean floor. We need neutral buoyancy. We need to be there with them, yet not weighted and hampered by wasted encumbrance. We do not don the weight of sin to be with them. We put on Christ's yoke, his burden, which is weight, but it is not sin; it is the burden of His discipleship. A life of following Christ is not devoid of weight. However, it is a weight designed to make us useful. It is a burden that requires breathing (prayer), weight distribution (organization), streamlining (attention to detail), visualization (vision), and spiritual fitness (trimming the fat).

I am writing this piece, not really because of diving, although it provided a great framework within to work. I am writing this piece because of one of my mother's prayers. I have been burdened lately by stress, emotions, and responsibilities. The weight was disproportionately arranged and I was starting to feel that "belly up" tilt. My mother prayed for "weightlessness." That word has stuck with me and made me think of what it really means to be weightless. We tend to think of weightlessness as an abandonment of all cares and responsibilities, but when you look at it, weightlessness takes a lot of discipline. I think Christians especially are accused of, and often guilty of, living outside of reality and floating in the ethereal regions of spirituality outside the confines of the world in which we were created to live and dwell. We live in a vision of escape and that frequently governs how we live out our lives - in a constant mind set of escape. We think of following Christ as this weightless experience that leads to prosperity and euphoria. We forget to take on the weight and ballast of his discipleship meant to facilitate and streamline our journey. We neglect our spiritual fitness and pile on the fat. Our gear sticks out and damages the environment and others around us. We misinterpret weightless to mean inactive when, in fact, weightlessness is a performance discipline. My mother's prayer was right. I desire to be weightless. I desire to be at my peak performance. That requires a bit of fine tuning in my discipleship. I think I am up for the task.

Note: For a great follow on to this, read on the neurology of weightlessness here.