Skimming or dipping?

I feel like one of those flat skimming stones

Whom across the surface of life I’ve been thrown

With force and speed I skip and skim the water’s skin

Not wanting to lose momentum for fear I’ll fall in

To the depths below for I know not what they hold

Darkness, emptiness, stillness or so I’ve been told

So I skim over life not ever wanting to miss a beat

Not reaching the other side is a sure sign of defeat

And every skip on the surface feels like another year

The skips still quicken so that the gaps now disappear

Between hitting times of activity and pure times of rest

Frantically chanting the chant “I’m just doing my best”

I am that skimming stone with 66 skips I’m flat out

But I’ve lost my pace, sputter sputter, I begin to doubt

If I’ll really make it to the pond of life’s edge after all

What is there anyway except for a hard bumpy fall?

As I begin to slow, I dare to dip in, down and beneath

The surface of life; oh, quiet time and space to breathe

And what peace lies down here; how I wish I had known

For my next life, may I return as a rock & not a skim stone.

By Matthew Zylstra.  “Skimming or Dipping” (2010)