There were twenty three of us in Advanced Biology that afternoon for Mr. Chamberlain’s famous water displacement contest/experiment. A couple of hoses, graduated test tubes, and water were all set. The directions were simple: blow into the hose attached to the tube filled with water. Breath becomes air pressure, moving the water into the second tube – water displacement via lung power. The experiment part: measure how much water is displaced by each person and figure out the class average. The contest: try to displace more water than everyone else. The prize: bragging rights and a spot on Mr. Chamberlain’s ongoing chart of winners.

Before we began, Mr. Chamberlain had everyone guess who would displace the most water. To a person, we picked Andy. He was well over six feet tall, played football, and was on the cross country ski team. After that, we picked skiers, long distance runners, and tennis players. Following them, the rest of us. With our predictions set, each of us took our turn moving water with breath.

As predicted, Andy displaced more water than anyone else. The male skiers and runners displaced around the same amount on their tries, clumping around third place. Then came the female athletes. The remaining students were spread out below that. But second place, between Andy and the male athletes, was mine. Five foot two inches, one hundred and fifteen pounds, and able to displace more water than everyone but Andy. It was such a surprising result that Mr. Chamberlain had me do the experiment twice. When the result was the same, he added me to the chart of winners (small letters, with my height, weight, gender, and second place status noted).

I doubt I had a lot more lung capacity than my classmates, but I did spend a lot of time in Chalk Pond. Swimming underwater taught me how to control my breathing. I knew how much air was in my lungs and how far I could swim on a single breath. I was aware that I had reserves of oxygen I usually didn’t need or notice. Perhaps I displaced more water because I knew just how much air I had in reserve, and what I could do with it; perhaps my classmates didn’t.

I think the same is true with my spiritual life. There are reserves that I barely notice and rarely call upon. They are there, ready to displace sadness, grief, anger, and fear. Even better, these spiritual reserves don’t end with my own strength and stamina: they are renewed by the one who gives life and breath to the whole universe.

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God…All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being… (John 1:1-3)

There’s a single juice glass in my cupboard. I bought it with three others a decade ago, when larger glasses were too big for my four year old son’s grasp. It’s four and a half inches tall, with a seven-sided lower half and a circular top edge. There’s a fancy cursive “L” on the bottom. It’s sturdy, well balanced, and hard to knock over.

This leftover juice glass has no place among the glasses in current use. My son is well past needing miniature glasses, and it’s too breakable to use at the bathroom sink. It’s not worth any money and I have no important memories associated with it. Yet, it’s still here, out of place and alone.

Out of its original place and filled with modest chive flowers, it is a perfect centerpiece on the dinner table – too short to block anyone’s view or conversation, too narrow to be a hindrance when passing dishes, too solid to be knocked over by a careless hand. With a handful of daisies, it fits on the narrow shelves in my living room, and doesn’t tip when the cats pass by with flicking tails. It casts a rainbow when the sun hits it just right.

Out of place isn’t something I like be. It’s uncomfortable to be a loner among a group of like-minded and socially related people; it’s disconcerting when talents, appearance, and meaningful purpose are no longer useful or particularly appealing to the larger group. But being out of place, no longer in like company, may be the only way to grow past my past self. To every thing there is a season, and seasons change. Holding onto one particular season in my life, insisting that I am limited to one particular use or identity, won’t keep me from being out of place. What it will block is a future beyond it, where I hold beauty and find my place at the table and on the shelf. Sturdy and casting rainbows is a wonderful new reality, unseen when out of place but surely on the other side.