Immersion

International swimmers gathered in Rome last week for the Sette Colli (Seven Hills) meet. Several visited the Vatican, where Pope Leo spoke about sports as an avenue for spiritual growth. He specifically blessed swimming:

"Swimming is practiced while immersed in an element, water, which surrounds the person. This symbolically recalls an aspect that has shaped us from our mother's womb: to live means learning to move in harmony with others and with the environment around us." — Pope Leo

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Though I'm no longer a practicing Catholic, reading the Pope's blessing on my favorite pastime thrilled me—especially his correlation between sport and harmony with others and the environment. When I immerse myself in water, particularly during summer heat, I find peace. I hear only the slosh of water in my ears, watch clouds through nose bubbles on my back, wash away anxieties with each bilateral stroke. My joy in the sport renews itself with every lap.

Pope Leo also noted that sport promotes individual values: commitment, solidarity, honesty—the watch never lies. I witness my swimmers demonstrate these qualities on the deck, and appreciate them in myself, in the young people I coach, and in my own children. The Pope said it best: "the age of competition passes, but those values remain."

I saw those same values again last week, watching World Cup soccer fans fill stadiums across North America. Different countries, languages, colors, passions—all immersed in the same experience. Norwegian fans thundering their rows, Argentine supporters dancing in the stands, French crowds erupting together. The solidarity was palpable. Spectators chose which matches to watch based not just on the game itself but on the electricity of the crowd, the singing and emotion that filled the stands.

Both immersion in water and immersion in community seem to offer the same thing: harmony with others, commitment to something beyond ourselves, the feeling of being held by something larger. Maybe that's what we're starved for—these moments when individual joy becomes collective, when the watch stops mattering and only presence counts.