Friday Prayer, January 6, 2017

“I, the Lord, have called you for a good reason…” Isaiah 42:6

 Happy Epiphany, friends! Something I’ve been thinking about lately is the stretch and purpose of our breath – how our breathing, right here in this moment, is not just for our bodies and our own lives. Being pregnant right now, I consciously remind myself at times how each breath I draw in sustains now only my body and life, but the baby nestled within. When my lungs fill with life, so does Little Love’s. God’s interwoven our bodies so intimately that the life I inherit (new with every breath!) immediately channels to a purpose and beauty beyond myself.

But this has made me think about the ways this is true all the time, for each of us. The breath we receive from the Spirit (whose literally meaning in the ancient texts is “breath” or “air”) is never meant to sustain only our bodies. It’s to enliven us that we might bring life to the world around us – a gorgeous flow that cycles within then spreads beyond.

I remember hearing someone say, “If you’re breathing, that means there’s more right with you than wrong.” So we take heart, we give thanks, and we spread wide our arms so the breath can flow….

I wonder where the Spirit’s breath within you will go to bless today?

***

Spirit of Life,

Teach me to breathe…

to gulp with desperate surrender your life-giving energy,

not out of fear,

but because I am listening to my primal hungers

and rejoicing in them.

 

The breath you give me in this moment is a messenger,

telling me that right now,

I am reborn,

I am cared for,

I am called.

 

Charged with the call to channel my breath,

your life-force,

toward a gasping world.

 

Your breath never stops, and never returns empty.

It continuously flows to spread life and promise

if I will be a river rather than a dam.

 

If I listen, I will learn.

 

I will ride the wind of your breath now filling me,

letting it carry me away from my middle anchor

to the edges where I’ll

grow and glimpse

the purpose you have

for ever-evolving me.

 

Amen.