Writings of a Beholder 🌿 8.18.23
Breath as an invitation to the deeper life
Breath As an Invitation to the Deeper Life
Have you ever given much thought to your breath?
To the air that fills the spaces around you and then somehow ends up right inside you like a mystery with no end?
Breath gives life as we hear those newborn babies cry, gulping down their first taste of this new world. It sustains life as we grow and are molded by our experiences, the people we encounter, and our faith, all while being carried by the breath inside our lungs. Our breath enables us to receive life, to give it, to live it fully.
My favorite account of breath in the Bible is as old as time itself and can be found right there, at the very beginning of all that ever was and will be.
“Then the Lord God formed a man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being.” (Genesis 2:7, NIV)
Can you picture it?
God bending down into the soil of the earth, molding Adam and every cell and organ and muscle and bone and tissue, and calling his body good?
Can you see him there, Adam, I mean, lying on the ground as God gazed at the beauty of what He had created?
Then in one single instance, the Creator bends again, down low to where Adam lays in the soil from which he was made, and got right up in his face and breathed life into his nose. His lungs filled with the breath of the Holy One, and in one sacred, time-stilling moment, mankind was crafted right there into the image of God, right from the very hands and breath of Love.
God could’ve just snapped His fingers and made Adam appear as He imagined him in His mind’s eye… I mean, He’s God. He could’ve made the process quick and easy, with little effort.
But He didn’t.
Instead, He chose to bend low and get His hands dirty in the soil of the earth, to take His time crafting His Beloved creation, and then He chose to breathe His own breath in order to make Adam come alive. I wasn’t there at the beginning of time, but I could guess that God enjoyed the process. I can sense His delight and see the slow, careful way in which He fashioned Adam’s body.
And I can see the smile on His face, the pure joy, when He made the decision to breathe life into Adam’s lungs — the very essence of Himself right into humanity.
The way God created mankind was intimate. He chose intimacy over hurry and connection over ease.
That must mean our breath is a gift of the purest kind of Love, an invitation into intimacy with the One Who gave it freely, breathed it freely, right into our nostrils and down into our lungs.
I wonder how often we all pause throughout the day to pay attention to that breath, to give thanks for this gift of Love living right inside us all. I wonder how often we notice when we’re barely breathing, barely hanging on due to the anxiety and the fear and the sorrow that crashes in and consumes us, crushing our chest and squeezing the breath right out of us.
And I wonder how much we pay attention to the things that give us our breath back.
How much time do we give to the people, activities, passions, and places that feel like a deep breath in the middle of a storm? Because life can feel like one big rainstorm, can’t it? Sometimes the clouds clear and the sun comes out and we breathe deeply the grace of such a sacred moment.
But when the waves of sorrow and pain roll in, where do we go? When the waters of anxiety steal our breath, what do we do? That’s why we need to pay attention to our breath and to the things that make us feel alive again. The things that give us our breath back. The practices that reconnect us to the One Who gave us His breath and keeps on giving it until He calls us back Home to be with Him again.
I believe that anything, and I mean anything, can become a spiritual practice because a spiritual practice is simply something that leads us into deeper intimacy with God. Our breath can be an indicator of what makes us feel close to Him, of what causes our shoulders to release the tension and our lungs to expand once again. God called it the breath of life because maybe, just maybe, it points us back to what makes us feel human and alive.
Tish Harrison Warren in her book, Prayer in the Night, writes,
“We need practices that don’t simply palliate our fears or pain, but that teach us to walk with God in the crucible of our own fragility.”
So maybe we start with our breath as a practice, paying attention to when it feels hard to breathe and when it feels easy. Maybe we return to the beginning of time, in the Garden of Eden, where God fashioned mankind from soil and breath. Maybe we allow our breath to be an invitation into intimacy, letting it notify us when our hearts and souls are thirsty for an attentiveness to the presence of God.
Maybe we allow our breath to ground us and root us in Love, just as I believe it was originally intended to do.
A living gift, freely given, over and over and over again, our breath; an indication of something off balance and a compass that points us Home to what makes us feel truly alive.
Maybe it starts with deep, slow breaths taken at the start, middle, and end of each day.
Maybe it looks like praying a breath prayer, a hand reached out toward God as you praise Him for that breath and the essence of Him alive in you.
Maybe it’s noticing when your breath turns shallow and when it feels expansive and light.
And maybe it’s doing more of what makes your lungs expand wide.
Whatever it is, I pray you pause today and notice your breath and remember that it was given from a place of deep, undying Love. That it was meant to draw you back to God, back to a kind of communing that is ancient and sacred.
I hope today it points you due north, to your most authentic self as you were created to be in God.
With you on the journey,
Celia
Life Lately
A Breath Prayer for Your Weekend
breathe in:
Let everything that has breath.
breathe out:
Praise the Lord. (Psalm 150:6, NIV)
*if you’d like to learn more about the practice of breath prayer, download this complete digital guide to practicing breath prayer.
Resources & Good Things to Pick Up
Grab some breath prayer cards, a journal, a candle, and other contemplative resources from my Etsy shop: The Beholding Co.
Grab a copy of my Bible study, You Are Beloved: a 21-day study on how to root your identity in the love of God, over on Amazon. And if you’d like a free 3-day sample of the study, reply to this email and I’ll send it right over!
My friend and licensed spiritual director, Kari Bartkus, offers an 8-week journaling program for those who want to process their grief and trauma with God within the safety of blank journal pages. I’ve completed the program myself and can say confidently that it was incredibly impactful and healing: Journal Gently
An Invitation to Pause & Reflect
A regular practice of reflection helps us recognize what’s going on beneath the surface of our souls so we can name it in the Lord’s presence. Because as we learn to name what we feel, what we need, and what we long for, we’re also learning to discern the Spirit’s sweet, gentle voice within our hearts and lives.
Take a few moments today or this weekend to journal or contemplate with the Holy Spirit the following question(s) or prompt(s):
What gives you your breath back? Over the next week or so, pay attention to what steals your breath and what gives it back to you.
How does it make you feel to know that your very breath is an invitation into intimacy with God? How might you say yes to that invitation this week?
Just so beautiful....