A new habit of breathing more deeply…

Sunday’s Sermon: Emptied to be Filled by God, reminded me of a lesson from our yoga group on breathing. Prior to developing a healthy yoga practice I did not realize I was not breathing correctly. In fact, many people do not breathe as they should. Optimal breathing takes place in the diaphragm, so the abdomen moves as the lungs fill and empty with each full breath. Most people breathe shallow, where only the chest and shoulders are affected with movement. While this method will keep you alive, it does not necessarily give the body the optimal amount of oxygen for the blood cells, nor does it allow for the development of really healthy lungs and heart.

And like breathing, this business of Easter does not happen before Jesus gives up everything. We cannot celebrate the gifts of resurrection without first experiencing the crucifixion. There is no way to experience new life without experiencing complete and total surrender. This is hard for many people. Surrender feels like giving up, but it really is more like letting go.

Consider the breath. The lungs cannot fill with breath until the previous one is released. Actually, there are many aspects of how our bodies function that exhibit this cycle of letting go and gaining newness: we continually lose and re-grow hair, we shed skin cells as new ones are made, blood cells and pretty much every type of cell works this way. We lose and then gain new cells over and over, infinitely, throughout our lifetimes, and yet we rarely take notice. With each inhale, there is an equal exhale. We practice that cycle of letting go and gaining automatically with every breath we take.

If we, as most people, breathe improperly, we’re wasting so much more goodness and health that is available to us with every indrawn breath. We’re not taking advantage of so much more oxygen and well-being that is free for the taking.

If you struggle with surrender, with letting go, so that God can fill you up with all the goodness that is available to you, consider the way you breathe. Perhaps developing a new habit of breathing more deeply, intentionally from the diaphragm, will make you more mindful of letting go of other things so that God can fill you up with all the God-stuff you are meant to have in this life, fill you with: more love, more joy, more mercy and compassion, more grace, more forgiveness, more willingness to serve others, more understanding and more knowledge of the really important things in life, more opportunities and more promises, more gentleness, patience and self-control, more music and laughter, more beauty and art, more time for the things in life that really matter.

Letting go of the breath is obviously easier to do than letting go of worries, regrets, guilt, shame, anger and anxieties, or the millions of other things that rob us of truly new-life experiences. But, if we are to learn a new habit, then we must start somewhere…and perhaps remembering to breathe will get us started on this process.

Maundy Thursday reminds us to let go of self and to serve others. Good Friday doesn’t feel very good. It is all about loss: Jesus’ loss of life on earth and our loss of God-with-us. Saturday is a day of emptiness and despair, but Sunday is for a deeper emptiness: an emptiness that comes with an empty tomb, an emptiness that means the fullness of God is now available to all! Join me this week for a deep exhale, so by Sunday morning we can breathe in the newness of life made available to each of us!

 

Blessings,
Tracy