Life of Sigh

Published in Spirituality
Vol. 2, January – February 2014, Number 112

There are few things in life more telling than a sigh. There is the sigh of resignation or relief, the sigh of exasperation or exhaustion, the sigh of deep peace and relaxation, the dizzy sigh of inebriated love, and the sigh that lies at the bottom of the well of our embodied soul that comes from the heaviness of sadness and the gravity of grief.

Have you ever noticed that it is impossible to sigh a shallow sigh? A weak puff, a deflated last gasp do not a sigh make. Not really. Sighs are deep. They come from the subterranean part of our being. And because they are released and rise up out of our depths, they are entirely real, raw, natural, unpremeditated. Unlike the scream of ecstasy and delight or the cry of anguish and terror, which also come from our depths, the spontaneous articulation of the sigh comes by way of a sort of slow suddenness. Quaker educator and writer Parker Palmer says that the soul is naturally shy. The sigh can be trusted as truthful since it only comes out because it absolutely must. It hides, even from the one in whom it dwells, because of the pressure of convention or vogue or the false self’s need to control what we say or do. We can no longer keep it hidden without risking damage or death.

What rises without thought, from the instinctive and disclosive wisdom of the body as the expressive agent of the soul, is an audibly breathy sigh. Just as it is impossible to sigh shallowly, it is impossible to sigh without a release of breath. The sigh that slowly brings the breath up the shaft of our body and then suddenly lets it go is life itself. And every sigh is a prayer. Just as every breath, every inhalation and exhalation is a prayer if we but see it as the exchange of life and love that recycles the original Holy Breath breathed into us and all creation by the Divine, so too each and every sigh is a prayer.

Whether we know it or not there is no sigh that is not of the Spirit because it is the Spirit-breath within us that seeks expression. St. Paul says it this way in his letter to the Romans: “Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness, for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but that very Spirit intercedes with sighs too deep for words. And God who searches the heart, knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God” (Romans 8:26-27). Every sigh, no matter its source or situation in life, is a prayer “too deep for words.”

Like its sister silence, the sigh is perhaps our most genuine, honest, and trustworthy prayer because it rises and goes forth without any agenda, any conniving or calculation, devoid of pretense or self-seeking. Instead it comes out as the truthful articulation and oblation of who we are at that moment in time. That’s it. And that’s everything. This is what it means “to pray as we ought.” As we grow in wisdom and grace, we realize the sigh is the prayer.

On the first page of the first section of the book Man’s Quest for God, Rabbi Abraham Heschel tells the story of a poor, devout cobbler who was the shoemaker in a village of neighbors who also were poor and so only owned one pair of shoes each. The dilemma was how to responsibly fulfill his duties as a shoemaker on behalf of his neighbors and his family’s welfare and at the same time fulfill his religious obligations and desire to say his morning prayer. Because so many of his customers were workmen who needed their shoes the next morning, the cobbler had to pick up their shoes late each evening and work all night and into the early morning so that he could have the shoes ready for the workers before another day of labor. After pondering his situation, the shoemaker asked his Rabbi what to do and so the Rabbi took the cobbler’s dilemma into prayerful consideration. “Should he pray quickly the first thing in the morning, and then go back to work? Or should he let the appointed hour of prayer go by and, every once in a while, raising his hammer from the shoes, utter a sigh: ‘Woe unto me, I haven’t prayed yet!’”? Perhaps, realized the Rabbi, the sigh is worth more than prayer itself.

Is not “wholehearted regret” more prayerful than “perfunctory fulfillment?” The sigh is the prayer for the shoemaker and for us because prayer is nothing, and means nothing, if it is dishonest. The oblation of genuine regret is better than the met obligation of the soulless pray-er.

The sigh of tiredness, like the sigh of sadness or relief, is unguardedly honest. So too is the self-expression that is embodied in the sigh that comes from love and peace. Let me end with a poem that captures the prayerful sigh of deep contentment that emerges from the realization of the sheer joy of being alive.

Denise Levertov’s poem “In Memory: After a Friend’s Sudden Death,” describes what for her will be the most memorable and most important recollection of her deceased friend.

Others will speak of her spirit’s tendril reaching
almost palpably into the world;

but I will remember her body’s unexpected beauty
seen in the fragrant redwood sauna

young, vestal, though she was nearly fifty
and had borne daughters and a son—

a 15th century widehipped grace,
small waist and curving belly

breasts with that look
of inexhaustible gentleness,
shoulders narrow but strong.

And I will speak
not of her work, her words, her search
for a new pathway, her need

to heedfully walk and sing through dailiness
noticing stones and flowers

but of the great encompassing Aah! she would utter,
entering slowly, completely, into the welcoming whirlpool.

It is my hope that these words will encourage you not merely to think of the spontaneous sighs that are too deep for words as prayer, but also that you will consciously give expression to the great encompassing Aah! whatever its source.

PRAYER PRACTICE:

We participate in spiritual practices in order to form “habits of the heart” so that what we do over and over again becomes second nature to us. When we do over and over again what we love and desire or what is true and genuine, eventually it becomes our spontaneous way of being in the world. The life of sigh is the life of prayer.

This week, at the end of each day, before you get ready to go to bed, take this unpremeditated act and make it your intentional and conscious meditation. All you do is this:

INSTRUCTIONS:
• Take a slow, deep, full breath, and then audibly let it go until you are empty of air.
• It doesn’t have to be loud, but make sure to make an audible sound when you breathe out.
• Don’t think. Just do what your body wants you to do.
• Your body will naturally reveal the sound and the sound will reveal the essence of your prayer.
• Be sure neither to take only a half-breath in nor only to release some of the air.
• Fully, completely breathe in. Fully, completely breathe out.
• Do it two or three times each evening.
• Try breathing in through your nose.
• Try breathing in through your mouth.
• Always release the breath audibly through your mouth.
• Feel free to try it standing erect. Try it sitting. Try it lying down.

MOST IMPORTANT OF ALL:
(1) Before you do this, be mindful that these sighs are your prayer (not an exercise or a relaxation technique). So, for a brief but deliberate moment, consciously offer your body-prayer to God. And

(2) After your final breath, before you fall asleep, ask yourself what the sigh said. Was my sigh tonight a prayer of resignation, relief, exasperation, exhaustion, deep peace, relaxation, love, sadness, grief, trust, or maybe something else?

Daniel J. Miller, Ph.D.
The writer is a spiritual director, teacher, and retreat leader in southern California, USA. His spiritual formation work weaves contemplative presence, compassionate action, and kinship with creation.

Levertov, Denise, 1987, Breathing the Water, New Directions Publishing, New York, New York, p. 23.