Breath

The most constant rhythms of life go unnoticed.

Yesterday we were all enjoying the sun and the water of the gulf and eventually came in to flop down on warm welcoming towels. Don't you love that moment, the sand under the terry cloth forms to your front and face, and you just lie there—eyes not quite shut— listening to the rhythm of waves.

Have you ever seen in that instant, with your head sideways, eyes squinting toward the bright sky, that you can study your own eyelashes as if in a microscope? Each lash is in perfect focus a centimeter from your eye. They are always right there, of course, but we don't see them. I'm not sure why, but under those unique conditions they might briefly stand out like bent dune grass between us and what lies beyond the horizon.

It’s that way with rhythms as well. We pay heed to the grand rhythms of days and seasons, but others are so close they go unnoticed... like the beating of our heart. We grow accustomed even to rhythms somewhat in our control... like the breathing in and out* that began the moment we were born.

I finished the “Borne” post (two below) a week ago, but it is not quite finished with me. I’ve been mulling it over for days. The theme from "Flower Duet" keeps playing in my mind as do the images of Ray Bethell's kites—not blown away in the wind but borne up...and in the control of grace.

Some readers kindly used the word inspirational in comments following that post. Interestingly enough, that word, inspire means “to breathe into.” There's that word again. We can't seem to escape the significance of breath. “Borne” was about the breath of God.
This post is about the breath of Life.

Hold your breath for 30 seconds as you read this paragraph. Ready? Start. You are suspending a rhythm of life. If you do this for too long, your brain will begin screaming, “Hey, silly, let your body do what God made it to do. Let it breathe until it’s time not to.” Still holding?....
Now exhale and breathe in again. Ahhh... isn't it amazing?
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Earth’s air outside our bodies has just the right amount of oxygen; our lungs have just the right design to take that oxygen from the air and pass it along to our blood; the heart sends the oxygenated blood coursing through our veins to millions of cells and muscles, including those that power the billows of our lungs that breathe in and out the air. Just as our brain whispered for breath as we read that last paragraph, our body itself cries out for air, "Keep breathing, lungs! Keep beating, heart! Your rhythms of life sustain me!"

This is just a hint of what the Psalmist meant when he said, we are “fearfully and wonderfully made”? It is frightening. It is wonderful.

Some day, for all of us, that last breath of life is let go. The opposite of inspire happens… and we expire (we literally ex-spire, breathe out). The “spire” part of both words is the root of the word spirit. The spirit leaves us with that last breath. This may all seem too obvious to write about, but I confess I've never quite thought of it this way before.

Like all truth it does not require human thought or belief to be so. It’s simply true. Our beating heart and breathing in and out measure time more surely than a clock, for they measure our time.

Is that what is meant by “fearfully…made”—that we are afraid it may stop working? I don’t think so. Most of us have no desire to dwell on the brevity of life, but we do not fear life's beginning, middle, and end. To me, it is fearful in that the complexity is beyond comprehension.
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By now, we're confident that science has sorted out the mechanics of how most things work, but we're afraid to admit that we don't know why they work or how they began working. We're afraid of the fearful miracle... afraid of the implications of being "fearfully and wonderfully made." It's not the wonder that frightens us... it's the word made. What if the breath of life is inseparable from the breath of God? Afraid of the answer, we pose two choices: to believe that breath and the God who made it has purpose. Or to pretend... that it all just happened.

If it all just happened, then we owe nothing to anyone. We're accountable only to ourselves. We can live and let live. We can eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow we die (the Dairy Queen song from the 70’s dropped the part about dying). The problem with pretending the intricate design and delicate balance we call "life" just happened is that we lose the relationship with God that prompted creation in the first place. We begin to think life is all about us. As a hit song in 1969 put it...

"...When that final moment comes

and I'm breathing my last breath,

I'll be saying to myself:

Is that all there is, is that all there is?

If that's all there is, my friends,

then let's keep dancing.
Let's break out the booze

and have a ball... If that's all...there is"
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I'm writing this post on the third balcony (where I wrote Monday's). This house has a metal roof, and for some reason, the builders left the corners of the eaves open, leaving a perfect place for bird nests. I just took a picture of the sparrow that is chirping at the vestibule of the nest. It's not a particularly pretty song, but it does seem to be a joyful noise.
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For me the "fear" of being wonderfully made is the same fear as in "The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom." [Proverbs 9:10] I do not share these thoughts to "preach" a sermon or to begin a debate about origins. I have no desire to convince your mind of something you've no desire to think about.

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It is simply my hope that TRUTH will ring true in your heart, in your lungs, and in your spirit... so that the request of the same Psalmist who spoke of being fearfully and wonderfully made can be uttered between you and God.

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The very same Psalmist in the very last verse of the very last Psalm implored:

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"Let everything that has breath praise the LORD! Praise the LORD!"

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Now watch the Youtube video of Peggy Lee's "Is That All There Is?", a sobering song about an empty existence that asks an honest question and give man's most common response. Here is another bizarre montage with the song. As you think on these things, you may rather hear a more current song about how BREATHING and living [with no mention of God] begs for purpose as seen in this Youtube montage of David Byrne's "Like Humans Do." [Here are the lyrics.]

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Life is not meant to be empty of meaning or full of self. We were created for relationship--with both God and one another. That is the story of both the Old and New Testaments. When our breath and life helps others remember this--that is Praise. As an example, listen to Kathy Trocolli's "Hallehujahs" on track 5 here, [Here are the lyrics .]

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[*Breathing out and breathing in is described as second-nature in the lyrics of "I've Grown Accustomed to Her Face,"]