Breathe

A lot is written about the techniques and benefits of breathing for physical, emotional, and spiritual health.  Sometimes Christians dismiss this teaching as un-Christian, something they must avoid. I've written about the use of the breath in the Jesus Prayer.  I've also offered you an example of a Breathing Prayer.  That other religious and non-religious practices celebrate the use of the breath doesn't make the breath less important for Christians.  In fact the opposite is true.  The use of the breath universally is evidence that it is from God.

Remember, the breath is at the core of the biblical and spiritual tradition.

In the beginning the Spirit (Breath) of God came upon the earth (Genesis 1.1ff). After the Resurrection, Jesus entered the upper room and breathed on the disciples and they received the Spirit (Breath) of God. At the new beginning (the church) the Holy Spirit (Breath of God) came upon the church (Acts 2).

With such biblical evidence of the priority of the breath for hooking up with God, why resist it. When you don't breathe you die. When you're stressed, your breathing becomes shallow (and you're moving toward death). But when you open to God, and breathe in great gulps of the Spirit, you live.

Don't grieve the Holy Spirit by resisting the practice of breathing as prayer. Instead, draw in the fullness of the Spirit with deepening breaths.

A sure way during the day to come back to your senses in Christ is to simply return to your breath and let the Name of Jesus rise and fall with each breath.

Then smile.  You're alive.  Exquisitely, unexplainably alive.  A true miracle.

Burn

Even now as you read these words, you can notice that there’s something within you that wants you to believe that God is far away, and that you have so far to go. There’s a foulness sitting at the source of your heart, and it’s muddying your view. All you see is the kingdom of your ego, ruled by a little you—an ugly, unholy parody of the true you. But there’s a path toward healing and recovery, and you’re on it. Made desperate by your awakening, you’re running a path that takes you farther into the depths of your being where you must face and confront this ugly parody of you really are. But don’t be afraid. The path is dark, for ugly things lurk here. But if you knew the truth, you’d know they’re only phantoms. You’re lit up with God as you run further in, and the only thing this Fire will consume is sin—your false, deluded, fallen self—and the phantoms it uses to protect itself. You’ll be glad to let that stuff burn.

So, why not stop for a moment and contemplate this thing God is up to in you?

Turn aside from the path. Remove your shoes and socks. The ground beneath your feet is holy (Exodus 3.5).

For more meditations on the Daily Guide/Rule of Life, click on the blog category, “Daily Guide/Rule of Life”

Click here to read or pray the Daily Guide/Rule of Life

Blindness

You cannot see what you really are—“the light of the world” (Matthew 5.14)—because your awareness is clouded and blocked by sin. Sin’s become such a hackneyed and loaded term that it’s almost worthless. Sin’s not doing this or that, thinking such and so. What some call sin is the sour fruit of sin, not sin itself. Sin’s deeper. It’s original—that is, it sits at the center and origin of your life, like something foul dumped at the mouth of the pristine mountain spring that is your truest self, made by God.

Sin is falsehood. It’s separation from the truth of the splendor of who you are in Christ. It’s the fall from the truth that you are, at heart, one with Christ. Sin splits you apart from Christ and who you really are. It creates a self that St. Paul called “the flesh”—that sinful self is at war with the beauty and goodness of who you are made to be. That self, fallen from its original splendor, contracts and shrinks into itself. Then in order to protect itself, it conjures up an illusion and does everything in its power to keep that illusion intact. The falsehood sin wants you to believe is that you are here, God is over there, and there’s a vast chasm between the two.

For more meditations on the Daily Guide/Rule of Life, click on the blog category, “Daily Guide/Rule of Life”

Click here to read or pray the Daily Guide/Rule of Life

Fire

You’ve gathering around the little fire you’ve made for yourself from Holy Scripture. You’ve begun to feel its heat. It might not be much, but it’s something—and that something’s enough to keep you alive. What I tell you now is very important; don’t miss it, even though it will take you awhile to understand it. The heat isn’t coming from outside you, but from within. You are on fire. I wish I could show you what a torch you already are for God (Matthew 5.14-16). I can’t, you’ve got to discover that for yourself. The path you’re running isn’t outside you; it’s not beyond you, somewhere else. True, God is out there; God is above and beyond you. But the mystery Jesus made known is that the fullness of God—what he called “the kingdom of God”—is among us. What’s more, it’s “within you” (Luke 17.21). You’re not running toward a cathedral or a monastery. You don’t have to climb mountains and cross oceans. It’s not a heavenly city or life-after-death you seek. Nor do you need a teacher to show you the way (1 John 2.27). No, no, no. None of that. The fullness of God is within you (Ephesians 3.17-19).

That that’s hard to believe doesn’t make it untrue. It just means that we’re strangers to a fact hidden from us, a truth Jesus came to make known. But you’re waking up, and that’s proof you’re willing to let go of all that wants to keep you blind to the splendor of the Fire burning within you.

For more meditations on the Daily Guide/Rule of Life, click on the blog category, “Daily Guide/Rule of Life”

Click here to read or pray the Daily Guide/Rule of Life

How to write a love letter :: restoring a love that's withered

Here's a link to my recent sermon, "How to Write a Love Letter," on Song of Songs (Solomon), chapter 4 (Oct 17, 2010). In this sermon I look primarily at the relationship between two human lovers, and acknowledge the barriers and pain many relationships experience. It offers a spiritual way toward the renewal of love even in the most entrenched relationships. Here's an excerpt:

Some of you are stuck in a relationship that has years of pain and suffering, where there’s little true love. There may be commitment (and you’re to be commended for that), but that’s all there is. Maybe you’re married—twenty or forty or sixty years.

You go to bed at night alone. Your spouse is more in love with Facebook than with you. Or she putters away in her sewing room to avoid the pain of crawling into bed beside you with that dull ache, wanting only to be held, but the pain of the past has put a wall between you that seems insurmountable.

And all this talk of love is at best frustrating; maybe it’s infuriating. There are some among us who are sitting this series out. It’s just too painful to face this love poem week after week when love is only a dream.

If that’s you, let me say this as gently and compassionately as possible, but as forcefully as necessary. Do not close your heart to love. Even if you’re not likely to get the love you long for anytime soon, you can and must give it. Not for the good of the person you almost hate because of the pain they’ve caused you—but for your own good.

You need to love. You can give love. But you learned that love is conditional. You learned that love is limited.

For more, click on this audio link . . .