breathe

When a newborn enters the world, the first milestone is that first breath. It’s as if all movement in the room stops and waits... is he going to breathe? 

Imagine going from a warm, dark environment where sound is muted and movement buffered by amniotic fluid to this world. The bright lights of a delivery room must be traumatic and that baby must feel frigid. And then he has to breathe on his own. Oxygen is no longer delivered via a nice placental tube. No, no, buddy. Breathe! On your own!

Breathing is our first response to our first trauma.

How is it, then, when I feel stress, I forget to breathe? Recently a dear friend reminded me to breathe. When you exhale, she said, you surrender. Upon inhalation, receive. I’ve been practicing this using that handy but often forgotten and under-rated muscle: the diaphragm. 

When you inhale, the diaphragm should push out and your belly looks full and round like a pregnant lady. When you use the muscle to exhale properly, all the air is pushed out of the bottom of the lungs. Frequently when we are stressed, we breathe out of the top portion of our lungs. 

All this musing of breaths and breathing landed me in Genesis 2:7. 

Then the LORD God formed man of dust from the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living being. 

So getting back to the basics of breathing sets us up to remember that we are creatures. God breathed us into life. His breath became our souls. We are spiritual beings with our spirits given from the Creator of the Universe.  

My breathing is primal and it reminds me of that first breath when God placed his lips upon mine and delivered life into me. 

become small

D sat before me an incredibly beautiful 40 something year old woman with track marks littering her arms. She had come into the clinic to be followed for a hepatitis C infection she contracted while shooting up heroin. She said she knew something was wrong because she no longer felt the effects of her pain meds. See, she has chronic pain. The damage to her liver prevented her pain killers from having an effect anymore. She said to me, “Have you ever known something in your gut yet you didn’t want to know the truth?” Her eyes, dim and tired, bore straight through me. “Yes,” I answered. Yes I have.

On Sunday we (at Fellowship Bible Church) looked at a beautiful passage of Scripture, Luke 9:37-50. This tale takes us from the Transfiguration where Jesus is seen by James, John and Peter chatting it up with Moses and Elijah and spits us out at an argument among the disciples about who is the greatest. In the middle of this saga, Jesus tells the disciples that he is going to be betrayed. They don’t want to know the truth. They can’t handle the truth as Jack Nickolson so eloquently shouted in the courtroom during the movie A Few Good Men.

One of the ways the disciples avoid the truth is by comparing and arguing about who is the greatest. Wow. Toddler-like. And yet, I am like Peter. I just want to build a shelter on the mountain and stay there. But we must come down to the reality of this fallen world. This is where it gets hard. Can I stay present? 

I would judge D with her scarred and hardened veins except for the fact that I get what she has done. In fact, I have done it myself. I have not shot up heroin. But I have used the Word of God - I have used religion - as so much heroin. I have split theological hairs to avoid the darkness of my own heart. I have spouted verses like quick fixes. I have used the Bible as a self-help manual instead of a collection of stories to lead me into the Throne Room of the Present.

How does Jesus handle his disciples, his friends? How does He handle D with her broken liver? How does He handle me with my “big religion?” By bringing a child to His side and saying, “Whoever accepts this child as if the child were me, accepts me. And whoever accepts me, accepts the One who sent me. You become great by accepting, not asserting. Your spirit, not your size, makes the difference.” (Luke 9:48)

See, he knew the disciples puffed up because they were feeling rather small and afraid. And he wanted them to know that it’s ok to feel small, vulnerable. In fact, that is where life is at: remaining vulnerable and undefended in this present fallen world and letting God take up our defense. He hung out with drunks, prostitutes and gluttons because they knew they were broken. The Pharisees hid their brokenness. He called them “white-washed tombs.” 

I don’t have to assert myself and become puffed up and big because the Greatest Man in the Universe became small and died so that I might live. Jesus says, “Become more by becoming less. Accept the least of these and accept Me.”

I only have access to the Spirit in This Present Moment. Can I be aware instead of asserting myself? Can I accept the least of these? Can I understand that the least of these lives in me? When I accept her, I can give grace more freely and genuinely to others.

Recently I have had to look at an argumentative side of me. I had to accept that I still carry around quite a bit of guilt. As I lay the guilt down and acknowledge my powerlessness, God’s Spirit rests on my spirit. I can accept my smallness and know that He is Big Enough. I can be generous in spirit. 

I don’t have to assert, just accept.

I’m so grateful the Word of God includes stories of confused and hardened men who brushed shoulders with Jesus and had their shells blown off. I can hardly follow this story with all its twists and turns! But this I can get...

Treasure and ponder these words! (Luke 9:44)

I will treasure them. I will muse.

it's easier to bolt

In the Garden of Gethsemane, Jesus asked his disciples to watch and pray three times. Three times, they snoozed. 

I am reminded of how easy it is just to bolt. Staying present is hard work. And, frankly, I can’t do it all the time. I can’t do it very well. To me, this is the purpose of Lent: to become aware of my weakness and know that I desperately need the grace of God. 

Monday evening I was busily cleaning out my closet (a chore I loathe), when Matt’s voice boomed from above: YOUR GROUP! It was like the voice from Heaven calling me out of my slumber. Quickly my eyes read the clock: 7:22 p.m. My group starts at 7:00. I spent the next 7 minutes agonizing over whether to drive the two miles to my group and interrupt them. 

It’s one thing to zone out and forget a commitment. But this was my SECOND week to completely space and forget my listening group. 

On Monday evenings, we gather to share what we are hearing from God. We receive one or two pages of insights and a few passages of Scripture for the coming week. Each of us shares what we see in the passage and how God is forming our souls through His Word.

I find it humorous that the passage with most punch for me this week was the one in which the disciples slept while Jesus suffered. Humorous because God gave me an object lesson in my own forgetfulness or lack of awareness. He reminded me of the difficulty in staying awake. He reminded me that I need Him.

In the end, I drove the distance over the speed limit. I rushed into the group. “Perfect timing,” someone said. They welcomed me like a community of grace would welcome a stray lamb. 

I am praying to be more present this week and to remain awake as we await the resurrection celebration on Sunday. And I am applying GRACE when I slumber.

Even so, today I celebrate this stupefying fact:

God has set EVERYTHING right between him and me. Romans 10:10

watch and pray

Today we enter Holy Week. In Honduras, no greater holiday exists. La Semana Santa far outshines Christmas. Stores shut down. Most people, even the poorer families, find their way to the beach. 

In downtown Tegucigalpa, artists craft carpets of painted sawdust covering the narrow streets. Curators walk the streets with spray bottles sprinkling water so that the sawdust won’t blow away in the dry wind. On Holy Sunday, a priest and some men in white robes will walk the carpet and stop at each station of the cross. A mass is held at the end of that procession in a small cathedral nearby.

I am pondering the moment when Jesus enters the Garden of Gethsemane and asks his disciples to watch and pray. He says he is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death. His disciples snoozed. 

When he returns, he says: “Stay alert; be in prayer so you don't wander into temptation without even knowing you're in danger. There is a part of you that is eager, ready for anything in God. But there's another part that's as lazy as an old dog sleeping by the fire."

This lenten season has been long. Amen, anybody? While I wait for spring, I am craning my neck to see the Resurrection just around the corner. It’s hard for us Protestants to stay in this death watch. Historically, I have paid little attention to this week. Living in Honduras changed me in a number of ways.

This week, I heed the words of Jesus: WATCH AND PRAY. The Spirit is willing but the body is weak. 

I want to learn to pray the words Jesus prayed. And mean it.

"My Father, if there is no other way than this, drinking this cup to the dregs, I'm ready. Do it your way."