I am a swayer.  I don’t know when this exactly happened but I think it may have begun when I was a nurse working long hours standing on cement hospital floors.  I read somewhere that if you moved side to side it prevented varicose veins and at 61 the gams are in pretty good shape.

Swaying continued through the years when my daughter, was a baby.  She was one of those infants who never slept through the night so when she rang at 2, 3 or 4 am I would pick her up and sway.  Often times this swaying stopped the crying and I was able to maintain my living situation as who wants to live in the apartment above, below or next to someone with a bellowing child.

Nowadays, pediatricians recommend that screaming babies should be allowed to scream it out.  It increases lung function and their ability to self soothe. I’m told it only takes a couple nights for this change in behavior to occur.

Maybe that is what swaying is, the ability to self soothe.  I tend to sway a great deal when I am in church especially when the passages are read about the atrocities of the saints or other Earth-shaking events in the past.

I wonder what the folks sitting near me think of me when I sway as it has become an automatic movement. They probably think I am listening to a rock and roll song and not listening to Father Tom but that’s not the case.  Swaying helps me concentrate and I’ve read that swayers or fidgeters lose an extra of 10 pounds of weight per year from this activity.  Therefore, I will continue to sway.