Amy Shearn writes about swimming and prayer in Forward:

I like swimming though I suspect I’m not very good at it; pool visits involve removing my glasses and I’m so nearsighted that I’ve never actually seen anyone else swim, so I’m not sure how you’re even supposed to be doing it. Pools are dreamy, unfocused places to me. My functional blindness has the odd side effect of making me believe, like a child hiding under a blanket, that no one can see me either. I enter an altered state, feeling simultaneously outside of my life and deeply inside of my body. What is the meaning of life, I wonder underwater, and what is the meaning of MY life? I’m able to stop worrying ever so briefly about work or the kids. These chlorinated meditations feel like something familiar, almost forgotten — oh yeah, like prayer.