A Lenten Reflection ~ 32

NOTE: This reflection was originally posted on February 21, 2013. As posted here today, it has been significantly revised.

Then the LORD God formed the earth-creature1 out of the dust of the ground and blew into the earth-creature’s nostrils the breath of life, and the mortal one became a living being. ~ Genesis 2: 7

Kabir says: Student, tell me, what is God?
He is the breath inside the breath.

Prayer? Prayer is how I breathe.
~ Thomas Merton

Every time we breathe, we participate in the divine life. Each breath is sheer gift. Every inhalation and exhalation is a grace-filled conspiracy with the Spirit intimately blown into us by the divine. Now each moment, each minute and hour and day we con-spire with God, breathe with God. Merely breathing is a prayer. From time to time today, lest we take it for granted, pause and pay attention to your breathing. Consciously take a few deep breaths as a reminder that God is the very life within our life this day. God is the breath within the breath that gives us life today. This is how St. John of the Cross puts it in the last stanza of his poem “Living Flame of Love” —

How gently and lovingly
You wake in my heart,
Where in secret you dwell alone;
And in your sweet breathing,
Filled with good and glory,
How tenderly you swell my heart with love.

I set this to music over thirty years ago and since then have sung it alone and with others at morning prayer. I have always loved the image of the Divine breath breathing in us. But I especially find evocative the connection between the breath and love. What is breathed within us, the scientist says, what keeps us alive is nitrogen, oxygen, and small amounts of other gasses. But the mystic knows that the Godbreath is not merely or even essentially chemical elements. It is love. The Divine breath giving us life with every inhalation and exhalation fills the lungs with necessary chemical elements but it is “the sweet breathing” of God, “filled with good and glory,” that “tenderly swells [our] heart with love.” The Divine breath enlarges our heart, increases our capacity for love — taking it in and giving it out.

We’ve all, no doubt, heard the story of the fish swimming in the ocean who hears about this thing called “water” and because it sounds intriguing and wonderful and life-giving he swims all over looking for water and asking other fish and plant life where he can find water. Well, this is a little bit like that fish or we are a little bit like that fish. We look all over for the Life-giver we casually call God, as if it’s a first name, or we decide God does not exist and don’t look at all, when the Life of Life is so immediate, so close, as accessible to us as our breath and as necessary for life as water is for the fish.

The second creation story in Genesis, portrays God as the Original Artist who works in clay. And after shaping and pinching and sculpting and shaving and removing, there is a beautiful clay figure. But that’s all it is. That is, until the sculptor bends down, in one of the most intimate, passionate, and tender acts in all of scripture, and breathes Godbreath, Spiritlove into the work of art, into the clay form. It is then (Chapter 2, verse 7), the author tells us that the Artist breathed into the clay figure’s nostrils “the breath of life“, and the red clay creature (from the Hebrew adam)  became a living being,” And we are still inhaling and exhaling that Divine breath of love today.

Where is God? Look no further. Look no more. Stop. Be still. Simply close your eyes, close your mouth, and breathe in deeply through your nostrils. Let your chest expand. Let your lungs fill up, and your heart swell. Hold not your breath but the Spiritbreath of Love at the top of your inhalation. Take a second or two before exhaling to realize that you cannot exist without this Holy Breath. Then, on the exhale, blow out slowly through your mouth and whisper a breathy “roooo-aaach”2 until your lungs empty. “Ruach” is the Hebrew word for breath, spirit, wind. Your life, my life depend upon that breath. Be grateful. Do this again once or twice more. A few times each day, re-member yourself to the One who sustains you in this way.

Since the day we were born we have been in-spired, yet how infrequently we take note of this miracle, this primal, animating gift of God from God. When we briefly bring our breathing to mind, it becomes a prayerful pause that reminds and re-hearts us to the wonder-filled reality that the Spirit prays in us throughout the day and even through the night when we sleep. We are through and through in-Spirited. All we have to do to pray, is from time to time, whether while walking or sitting or standing or kneeling or lying down, be mindful of the gift of breath and breathing. As your lungs are empty let your heart be full — grateful.

If only for a moment this awareness takes your breath away, that is a good thing. It reminds us we fail to be without breath. And it is a grateful and holy thing to realize that each and every breath is a simple body-prayer of receiving and offering love.

PRAYER MANTRA:

Breath of Life, you animate all creation.
You breathe in me. I give you thanks.

1 The Hebrew word transliterated as adam has a double-meaning. on the one hand, coming from the root word meaning “to be red,” most likely referring to the ruddy color of human skin, and, on the other hand, a play on the word adamah which means earth or soil. It (adam) wasn’t originally a first name but the word used to denote a human being. Again, the text indicates the lifeless figure doesn’t become a human being until the Creator breathes into it Divine breath.

2 The Hebrew word for Spirit, transliterated as ruach, is pronounced roo-awk.

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