The Danger of a Teaspoon

“Did you know,” my dad asked conversationally one evening as our family of five all sat around the dinner table, “that you can drown in a teaspoonful of water?”

I looked at him with wide eyes over my forkful of buttery sweet corn. My eight-year-old brain processed this alarming information. All the warning labels on five-gallon buckets seemed like overkill if it only takes a single teaspoon. My thoughts flashed to the dental office: they squirted water into my mouth. How did they know how much was too much? I could drown right there on the plastic vinyl chair! Forget the fear from all the teeth they kept pulling out of my mouth (19 altogether, if anyone is counting. I was.). Drowning was a new danger I tacked onto my ever-growing list of reasons to despise dental work.

I carried my fear of drowning with me as I grew. Every so often I would slip this little factoid into conversation, almost as a mantra for safety, and received polite looks and no responses. You can drown in a teaspoonful of water. Dad meant, of course, that as little as a teaspoonful of water aspirated into the lungs is enough to cause serious damage, but it took me many years to realize my misunderstanding. On the rare occasion that I found myself in a pool or lake, I taught myself to tread water and back float for my own safety, but refused to put my head underwater.

And as we had children and they grew to be study preschoolers? Into swimming lessons they went, month after month and year after year. I insisted that my children understand water safety and to be able to swim. I joked that I needed them to save themselves since I obviously can’t save them myself, but I kind of wasn’t joking.

At four, our eldest son, Digit, took to the water like a fish, bobbing underwater with glee. Our second son, Duke was three, and wasn’t quite as comfortable. I began to wear a swimming suit to class with them, watch them from the pool deck, then get into the pool with them after class. While Digit splashed around, I would hold Duke securely on my hip, strap goggles over my ponytail, and bob up and down, up and down, blowing bubbles with Duke under the water, slowly traveling from one end of the pool to the other.

From all appearances, I was a fun mom, reinforcing the skills the kids learned in lessons and trying to help Duke acclimate. In reality, I was practicing the skills I learned by listening intently to the kids’ instructors (who were usually teen-aged children themselves).

The kids continued to take swimming lessons and participated in the occasional season of rec-league swim team, and I was no longer needed in the pool. I prayed countless rosaries and Divine Mercy chaplets on the pool deck as the kids hopped fearlessly into the pool to swim laps, tease each other, and enjoy the water. I hoped that no one would notice the tears welling up in my eyes every time I watched them swim so confidently. In well over a teaspoonful of water.

It occurred to me recently that, while Himself a carpenter, the majority of Jesus’s disciples were fishermen. They spent their careers on and in the water. The Bible frequently recounts stories of Jesus on the Sea of Galilee either accompanying the Apostles at work fishing, or using the fishing boats as pseudo-podiums since the hillsides at the shore formed an amphitheater and allowed crowds of people to be able to hear Jesus speak.

Even with their familiarity and confidence atop the Sea, the Gospel of Mark (chapter 4) recounts a time these fishermen were fearful. They had spent all day with Jesus on the water as he evangelized His followers and onlookers still on shore with parables of the mustard seed and the sower and the lamp. That evening, Jesus and the disciples sailed across the Sea in order to find a quiet place to rest. As they sailed, Jesus fell asleep. I can imagine the peaceful, quiet rocking of the boat was enough to lull Him into rest.

Soon, however, a rather violent storm came upon them, one so fierce that even the fear-less fishermen were frightened. Wave after wave rose up and splashed across the boat and began to fill it. This of course is a very good reason to be frightened: much better reason than my irrational fear of a single teaspoonful.

And yet, Jesus slept on a cushion, unperturbed by the maelstrom.

When the frantic Apostles woke Him, desperate for help, His response does not meet the panic of his friends. Similar to the response a Dad offers when he’s awakened by a son frightened by a nightmare: irritated to be torn from sleep, but willing to act out of love for his child to banish the monster, tuck him back in, pray with him.

“Jesus woke up, rebuked the wind, and said to the sea, ‘Quiet! Be still!’ The wind ceased and there was great calm. Then he asked them, ‘Why are you terrified? Do you not yet have faith?’”

There it is. Do you not yet have faith?

There are dangers out in the world. We can’t escape that. But we don’t have to be controlled by our fear of those dangers, either, because we know that our God is much, much bigger than our very lives. He loves us and our faith in Him reminds us that, no matter what happens here on Earth, we are His, and our home is with Him in heaven.

You’ll be glad to know, Dear Reader, that I am no longer quite so terrified of the dentist, since I won’t be drowning in the office any time soon. I still avoid going underwater.

And Duke is now gainfully employed as a lifeguard.