(In honor of Brother David Steindel-Rast’s 100th birthday)

To swim, you must trust,
said a wise man who has
now achieved 100 years
on the planet.

“You can learn as much as
you want about swimming
from books,” he said. “You
can stand in the water

and move your arms.
But unless you really let
yourself down into it,
you’ll never swim.”

You don’t trust the water,
which will hold you, if
you allow it; you must
trust yourself, he says,

a bigger challenge.
Learning to swim then,
means learning to trust
the unknowable,
the unseeable,

what some call God,
as well as the physics
of bodies in water.
If we allow ourselves

to relax and float—
a lesson we practice again
and again—we build
trust in our fragile,

undependable, often
get-it-wrong selves,
coming to see that we,
quirky and oddly made,

truly are our own best
gifts.

•••

Brother David Steindel-Rast is an author, scholar
and Benedictine monk, known throughout the world
for his philosophy that gratefulness is the true source
of lasting happiness.

Widely considered the “grandfather of gratitude,”
Br. David has been a source of inspiration and spiritual
friendship to countless leaders and luminaries as well as
one of the most important figures in the modern interfaith
dialogue movement.

You can learn more about Br. David at the Grateful Living
website, where you can also see His TED talk,
“Want To Be Happy? Be Grateful,” which has been
viewed almost 10 million times.