The Power of Witness

Last updated on: July 12, 2021 at 5:22 pm by Sherry Antonetti

The Power of Witness 2021-07-12T17:22:28-04:00 Sherry Antonetti

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We took the kids swimming this Sunday at the pool with the high diving board. I hadn’t planned to revisit the foolishness of two weeks ago, as my knees still remembered my inadvertent flip. However, we weren’t the only ones to hit the pool this weekend. We watched as a woman with Down Syndrome in her mid thirties plunged fearlessly over and over again into the pool from the high dive. An elderly man also took to jumping. Courage begat courage, and a line formed for the high dive.

I eventually took a turn, opting to jump rather than dive to protect myself from belly flops.

They kept going. Some of the jumps were better than others. They didn’t let the hardness of the water stop them. They didn’t let age or genetic conditions define them. They jumped, they swam laps, they stretched and did warm up kicks before plunging off the high dive. Witness encourages witness, and the pool and the diving boards teamed with people eager to try. Two of mine took their chances as well. The collective courage of so many going off the boards, erased the danger of it. It still existed, but it could be faced.

In this day and age, when we face recovering from sixteen plus months of masks and Covid and isolation, we need to relearn how to plunge deep into community. We may belly flop. The water may be hard, but the joy of being immersed in it deeply is worth letting go of the railings. I see all my students and they’re in desperate need of discovering, they can survive a belly flop, and the joy of creating a huge social splash with an unexpected cannon ball or can opener.

We need to be salt and light to the world, and to remind the world that it was made for more than dull darkness and life without flavor. The world needs witness that seeds the world with courage and joy and creates a line of individuals wanting to plunge deeper.

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