Just Breathe

Genesis 2:7 NRVSA

7 then the Lord God formed man from the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and the man became a living being.

Psalm 107:43 NRVSA

4 Let those who are wise give heed to these things,
    and consider the steadfast love of the Lord.

Has you ever felt short of breath? It's a natural experience when walking upstairs or out for a run / jog or at the gym? Funny that, how it's good for us to exercise to the point where we need more air, more respiration, more heart beats, it's how we get fit.  

Lots of us have felt short of breath in not so healthy ways. Remember that time during our experience of covid 19? Not good! Frightening to see those of our loved ones needing specialist help and even machines to preserve breathing to save life itself. Remember the gratitude we felt deep down for the carers, the technology, the application of medicine, the existence of an NHS and the gratitude we felt for the scientists in the Universities and research labs that developed a vaccine. 

All that care and effort so we could breathe again and continue life with our loved ones. Remember the grief at the loss and separation for those who did not make it through? Breath, breathing, just breathe. It's where it all begins for each one of us, that first breath when we enter this world. The cessation of breath is the sign that we have left this life and we have returned to the origin of all life. Mostly we are unaware of our breathing it just happens for us. It's taken care of by our physiology and our environment. However, there's more to breathing. Breathing is affected by our relationships. You know what I mean, the way our breathing changes in a challenging situation when we meet someone we are fearful of perhaps someone we are angry with, or how about meeting someone we love and loves us. Our breathing changes when our thoughts, feelings reflections change. This is one reason why we begin learning to live as a reflective disciple with learning to be aware of our breathing. Learning to just breathe. If there is a problem with just breathing then we need to seek help. Difficulty in just breathing needs medical attention so, presuming we have a healthy physiology and there is no illness preventing us just breathing we can use some simple techniques to get control of those resistance experiences to just breathing.  If we can just breathe we will be able to access the energy for change.   

Some of us experience shortness of breath when we are in a heightened state of anxiety or fear. You know the feeling, the gasp for air, the thumping heart, the cold sweat and the aches and pains.  In this situation our energy is drained and we begin to feel exhausted.  The first step then is to learn to breathe; we are created to breathe.....

This leads us to a second question. What experience will we cultivate to replace the experience of 'Breathlessness'? The answer is love. The word is so overused in English. I love my children but I also love cake; hardly the same thing. The cultivation of love, lovingkindness, a steadfast love is what Jesus is talking about when He tells us to love God and love our neighbour. This kind of love has to be reflected upon, understood and acted upon. So the second reflective skill is that of cultivating lovingkindness, that is a love that cares enough to act in the best interest of others. 

Reflective Lifestyle

2 Timothy 3 NRSV

16 All scripture is inspired by God and is useful for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, 17 so that everyone who belongs to God may be proficient, equipped for every good work.

Beginning a 'reflective lifestyle' can be daunting. Let's face it, 'reflective lifestyle' is not exactly the language that we use in everyday life, at least not in Lanarkshire where I live. In fact, it can sound a bit 'New Age', a bit odd, something someone with fewer concerns than an ordinary person trying to cope with the cost of living crisis would spend time doing.  However,  if we simply examine how we successfully deal with questions / issues in our lives in our contemporary period it will follow, that taking some sort of assessment of the situation we are in and how we got here, identifying the root issues, making some sort of plan to deal with the issues, identifying things that help and hinder, getting down to making some change, reviewing what works and then move on to the next part of our lifeplan is going on. We use guides and templates, internal and external sources of help to assist us in making the change in our life we desire or simply need. We draw on our cultural resources to make sense of what needs to be done. In the culture in which I live this is made up of both 'scientific' assistance (E.g. consult a G.P. over a medical issue and thereby access their very specialist scientific knowledge and advice). We will also use our traditional cultural forms of knowledge (E.g. faith perspectives, humanistic perspectives, rituals, politics, economics, sources of identity, lived experience and so on; 'Embodied Intelligence'). These two forms of knowledge are both cultural and interdependent on one another. For example, our values, attitudes and beliefs including the historical experience of accumulating them will modify what we prioritise and do, even if there is a good scientific basis or not for doing so.  How we act is governed by complex interrelationships of the physical, social, psychological, environmental and developmental space that we occupy. All of this stuff is going on all the time and we are hardly aware of it. That's why, for the writer of Psalm 1, the overt identification of reflection as a conscious process is so important. It provides us a way of increasing our awareness and control over our lives. 

For the disciple of Jesus of Nazareth reflection is rooted in the sacred writings that Jesus knew and that He used to guide Him and that He used to teach. We also have the writings that have become scripture for us. These are the writings of the first disciples who knew Jesus directly or knew those who knew Him directly. The scriptures are, what the writer to Timothy states as 'useful for teaching'. Here, the word teaching comes from the word used as 'wisdom'; the scriptures are 'wisdom literature'. For the disciple, a healthy life, community and family summarised for us as the  'Love of God and Neighbour' are rooted in  the reflection on this wisdom literature and on the One of whom they speak; Jesus of Nazareth. In summary then, Reflection will have two sources: the scientific / social scientific sources of knowledge and the sacred writings of our faith. They interact through reflection producing meaning, understanding and action leading to what Jesus called in the Sermon on the Mount: 'Wisdom', 'Wise Action', 'Hearing and Doing'. 

The Suffering Servant; Thoughts, Feelings, Reflections...

 

Reflection as a practice of discipleship

 Reflection  

Psalm 1 (NRSVA)

'Happy are those
    who do not follow the advice of the wicked,
or take the path that sinners tread,
    or sit in the seat of scoffers;
2 but their delight is in the law of the Lord,
    and on his law they meditate day and night.
3 They are like trees
    planted by streams of water,
which yield their fruit in its season,
    and their leaves do not wither.
In all that they do, they prosper.'

Have you ever been mentally and emotionally stuck, frozen in your decision making? I have. Advice seems to come to us from every source; family, friends, politicians, pastors, churches, advice books, our 'holy books' not to mention the plethora of 'life-interpreters' queuing up with their version of our lives. We need a process for becoming ourselves, a process for making decisions, asking questions of ourselves, a way of expressing doubt, peaceful disagreement and a way of discussing with ourselves / others the stuff that matters. Processes are needed for working things through and making more sense of things as we plan for the future and become more like our authentic selves. 

I love Psalm 1 because of the opportunity it promises us for a deep rooted experience of wellbeing.  This wellbeing is situated in the changing seasons of life; the metaphor of a tree next to a life sustaining river is obviously a nod back to the Genesis garden and a nod forward to the Revelation rest. The tree, in the fullness of time, produces good fruit and when fruit is out of season the tree remains healthy with its green leaves. The picture is of abundance, of blessing of happiness. 

The question must surely be what are the means for this blessing, this abundance to be realised in our lives? Two elements need to be present; a world view rooted in the 'Law of the Lord' and the process of meditation, musing, reflecting on this 'Law'. When Jesus was quizzed about this He maintained that the Law could be summed up as 'love of God and love of neighbour'. Values, attitudes and beliefs expressed in neighbourliness and a commitment to mutual wellbeing. 

So here we are, stuck in crisis and needing a way to move on to a better place.  The way forward is facilitated by the process of reflection on the world view of God. Seeing, perhaps for the very first time, the circumstances of our lives from God's perspective. This is a process of reflecting on the natural law of wellbeing based on love and solidarity. It requires to be meditated upon, churned over, thought about, discussed, decisions made, plans and actions taken. We have to somehow incorporate the process into our daily lives to produce the fruit of wellbeing. This wellbeing will last throughout the seasons of our lives until we find ourselves again back in the garden, resting and rooted next to the river of life. 

Over the next while a small group of disciples of Jesus are going to reflect on these things and we are going to meet on a Wednesday evening to catch up on how we are all getting on. You are welcome to join us here on this page or in person or both. Whats the alternative? Scoffing, cynicism, giving up, turning our face away from hope and solidarity with our neighbours? Must we accept as inevitable a 'death and taxes'  world view and a loveless life of profits before people?  

Hope to see you around the conversation table sometime soon.     

 

Enjoy learning how to read the bible as one unified story leading to Jesus