Breathe Deeply

I practice a routine called "Stretch and Pray" first thing most mornings. Murray Finck, the author of a little book by this title, gives guidance for a series of stretches and prayer positions that help get the accumulated stiffness and aches out of the body. This is a good way to get centered to start the day - appreciating life, turning attention to God; thankful for this new day and mindful of the needs of others.. Very importantly, along with each stretch and prayer position, Finck counsels the practitioner  - "don't forget to breathe".

Seems obvious, of course, that we shouldn't forget to breathe. After all, inhaling and exhaling air is a basic necessity for life.  But I find that remembering to breathe deeply can help turn attention to the fact that I am alive and for this I am thankful.  The words for breath and spirit are very interconnected in Hebrew and Christian spiritual traditions.  To breathe means we are living and our breath is a gift from God; something we have in common with every living being.

The phrase from an old hymn comes to mind, "Breathe on me Breath of God, Fill me with life anew"

I have been with several loved ones during their last days and hours on earth and have noticed how shallow their breathing became as life ebbed away and they "gave up the ghost".

These scattered thoughts came into my mind the other day when we got an email from an old friend and colleague from our long ago days in Vietnam.  Bill Herod, who has lived in both Vietnam and Cambodia for many years, has great compassion for the people of Southeast Asia and has dedicated his life to service and peacemaking.  I copy his short reflection here with his permission:

      "Years ago in Viet-Nam, I was helping out at the little hospital in Tam-Ky after a ferocious battle. The     place was overflowing with casualties. 

     Suddenly, a nurse and I saw a man rushing toward us carrying a young woman. She was unconscious, but still breathing.  We put the 17-year-old on the ground and began CPR. As the nurse did the compressions, I started mouth-to-mouth. 

     An odd calm settled in as we went through the procedures. I filled her lungs with my breath, then felt the breath rush out against my cheek.

     After a few moments, the nurse sat back and said, “She’s gone.”  “But she’s still breathing,” I protested. “No,” the nurse countered, “you’re breathing. She’s not.”

     Whose breath was it I felt on my cheek? Hers? Mine? Yours? It was ours. All of us are inextricably interconnected. We are surrounded by birth, life and death. We all breathe, but whose breath is it? It is ours and that of all those who have gone before and all those who will follow.

Each breath we take is part of the whole mystery of creation. Breathe with care."

Bill Herod
Sen Monorom, Mondulkiri, Cambodia

My aunt, Minerva Aaker, took her last breath on March 15 this year at the age of 95 - the last of all my uncles and aunts. Here she is with my sister Jean and me a year ago.

Just two weeks later on March 28th, our grandson, Colin Aaker, took his first breath as he came into this world in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

For everything there is an appointed time ... a time to be born and a time to die...                  Eccleiastes 3:1

Colin with grandma Judy

Genevieve's advice

We recently spent a weekend in Amarillo in the pan handle of Texas - think drought, strong wind, flat land and the odor of feed lots.  The reason for the visit was to spend time with an old friend, Carolyn Kelly, whom we first met many years ago in Peru. 

One afternoon we visited Genevieve Olson Miller, a 95 year old widow who lives alone in a small house on a farm about 30 miles from Amarillo.  Out at her farm that day the wind was blowing great billows of dirt into the air, bringing to mind images I have seen of how that part of the country looked on an average day during the dust bowl back in the 1930s.

Genevieve was born and grew up on a farm near Oslo, Texas - a town settled by Norwegians in the early 1900s.  Back in the first decades of the century ads were published in papers in the North enticing Norwegians to visit and buy land in Oslo in order to establish a prosperous Norwegian community and congregate with the local Lutheran church in the area.  Now the population is much reduced but I understand there is still a small Lutheran church in Oslo.  My grandfather, Olaf Aaker, went with a neighbor by train to Texas to check it out - about 100 years ago.  Luckily he didn't bite on the sales pitch and came home to the rich soil of his Minnesota farm.  That was the longest and only major trip he ever took.  

Genevieve is a well read and engaging personality.  Upon entering her house one is struck by the large number of books piled high on tables and stacked on book shelves.  She keeps up on theology, politics, environmental issues, and current events - local and global.  Within the first minute of our conversation she was into a discussion about water and the dire situation the country is facing given prolonged droughts and the depletion of the aquifer.

She had just read Lester Brown's latest book,  Full Planet, Empty Plates: The New Geopolitics of Food Scarcity (2012).  She needs a magnifying glass to read these days, but she said she finished reading this book in four hours.  I have read some of Lester Brown's books, but have not read this one nor have I been good at keeping up with global issues recently -  Certainly I would not be able to compete with Genevieve's reading program these days. 

After about an hour of conversation Genevieve invited us to partake in coffee and a piece of delicious homemade chocolate cake and continue talking around the table.  She is very distraught about the dismal level of civil discourse in the country at present, and the lack of long term thinking for the common good. 

I told her I am preparing a talk on the topic of living our faith boldly in daily life in the modern culture.  I asked her advice on how I might broach the subject.  With hardly a pause she suggested I might consider Martin Luther's explanation of the eighth commandment.  Then she proceeded to quote it from memory, just as she had learned it some 80 years ago in confirmation class.  Wow!

The 8th commandment is ....

You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor

What does this mean?  (Luther's explanation)

We should fear and love God that we may not deceitfully belie, betray, slander, or defame our neighbor, but defend him, [think and] speak well of him, and put the best construction on everything.

A bit of an updated translation of Luther might read like this:

We should fear and love God, so that we do not lie about, betray or slander our neighbors, but excuse them, speak well of them, and put the best construction on everything they do.

If we followed this commandment wouldn;t we be in a better place politically and religiously in this country?

In a recent article about the ten commandments Pastor Peter Marty wrote, "However feebly we may grasp the commandments, they are worth fresh attention in our congregations and households.  We can keep them from becoming artifacts of a distant past."

Genevieve certainly gave me something to think about and I went back to re-read and think about the ten commandments, something I haven't done for a long time.  There is much value and practicality for daily life in the wisdom of the ages, even though many people in the post-modern age don't know much about the ten commandments.  Or care.

Indeed, I found much to think about and appreciate in Genevieve's wisdom and advice.

 

Genevieve