Thursday, February 28, 2013

Breathing, again, & Blood Pressure


I know I have written about breathing more than once before. Please allow me the grace for another reflection on this.

When I started working with a trainer, he kept reminding me to breathe. I often had my rhythms backwards, exhaling when I should inhale and vice versa. He explained to me that I should be exhaling when I am contracting my muscles and inhaling on the release. Okay, that sounds good, and actually familiar advice from others who work out.

Sitting in our midweek prayer time in the Chapel, centering on the presence of God among us, my thoughts have often turned towards the rhythm of my breathing. It is as important during centering prayer as it is during exercise. I have spent some weeks reflecting on the connection and trying to understand it.

Working out is exercise that requires a discipline. Centering prayer, or any type of prayer for that matter, is also exercise that requires discipline. When I work with my breath during midweek prayer, I can help my body and my mind to relax and settle into God’s presence. This too is familiar.

What I have pondered lately on my breathing during both my workouts and my time of centering prayer is why it is important to exhale when the muscles are contracting. I asked my trainer this. At first, he talked about the importance of the rhythm and actually doing it, but I asked again specifically why is it important to exhale then. Ah, it is mainly to help control the blood pressure to keep it from elevating too high. He also said it is not as crucial for people who do not have cardiovascular issues, but for those who do, it is vital. I listened to that because I inherited a familial tendency towards high blood pressure.

The connection in my time of centering prayer has been revealing itself to me lately. When I seek to center on God’s presence, I definitely need to contract my spiritual muscles to let go of distractions and barriers, and I need to relax my intake to allow God’s Spirit to move within and through me. By exhaling as I pray, “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God,” I am intentionally moving away from distractions and barriers. I pause at what I think of as the bottom of my breath to emphasize the release of those things that would keep me from focusing on God. Then as I inhale, I pray, “have mercy on me, a sinner,” staying open, not tense or stressed, to allow God’s Spirit to fill me with mercy.

John 20.22:
When he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, ‘Receive the Holy Spirit.

Thursday, February 21, 2013

Timeline of the Universe


A couple of years ago, my imagination was captured by an image Jennifer Wiseman shared at the VA Seminar of Science, Theology & Ethics. Wiseman, an astrophysicist, is the Senior Project Scientist for the Hubble Space Telescope at the Goddard Space Flight Center. She is also a Christian, and a United Methodist to boot!

The image is the timeline of the universe. To me, it directs me to the enormity and eternity of God. What it shows is the 13.77 billion years of the development of the universe. I know that someone could look at this image and see it in an entirely different, even prosaic way, but I can’t. I keep this image on my iPad. Sometimes, I need to have a sense of perspective that time is a part of creation which is far more than my little slice of it.

Tonight that image became an even deeper metaphor as we talked about grace during our Wednesday night Lenten study. God’s grace has been flowing for well over the 13.77 billion years of this universe. This grace that floods my life and makes all things new is a part of the enormity of God’s eternity. The grace, or love if you prefer, bursting forth from God has moved and is moving through the creation of the stars to the first sunrise on earth to the tiniest atom in the tiniest cell in my being. As it has moved into me, so it seeks to move through me and flow from me radiating the eternal Yes of God’s creating power. God is not just a first mover who set creation into motion and then stepped back. God is intimately touching every single part of all the universe, or even universes.

And what is so amazing is that the best and most whole image we have of that powerful, eternal grace is in the person of Jesus, who, “though he was in the form of God, did not grasp at equality with God, but emptied himself…”

And all I can do is marvel and praise.

Psalm 8: 3-5
When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars that you have established;
what are human beings that you are mindful of them, mortals that you care for them?
Yet you have made them a little lower than God, and crowned them with glory and honor.

Thursday, February 14, 2013

The Winter of Listening


The Winter of Listening

Last week, I participated in a discernment retreat where we used the paradoxes of winter—dormancy/growing, dark/light—to reflect on our own lives. I share my reflection on a poem called “The Winter of Listening.” The questions come from lines in the poem.

In what ways do I diminish the presence of what is precious inside of me?

Just as that small germ of an idea or concept or image rests in the dark contours of my mind, needing the dark to germinate, can be aborted or nearly so when light is shone too quickly, and too early, upon it, so too can that which is precious in me that needs time to grow before it can be revealed. Calling attention to it before its time can cause it to wither either from an intense spotlight glare or from lack of fencing and boundaries to protect its tenderness.

What is the great shout of joy waiting to be born inside of me?

Yes, what is it? Partially, it is already coming to birth as I have finally begun to accept the affirmation that my church has given me, and now that in some ways I am free from feeling under a harshly critical judgment from Jeff. Oh, that I could truly have come to this joy without losing my partner. Oh, that we could have come to this joy for each of us, instead of what brought joy to us taking us away from each other. Not fusion, but experiencing full joy for what was growing in our own self, AND in the other as well.

What in my life disturbs and then nourishes?

Hearing the affirmation time and time again, and coming to accept it has meant that I am now accountable for the gift. I can no longer point to circumstances that would not allow me to live into it fully. This disturbs the soil so that new seeds, visions, and hopes can come to fruition.

The call to the artist in me comes not only in the form of weaving and design, but also in the form of my ministry--preaching, pastoring, mentoring, walking the journey with my colleagues on my staff and the lay leaders of our congregation. There sometimes is a messy accountability for the other in partnership, when it would seem easier to walk the path without regard or responsibility for someone else. I don't see that mutual accountability as an unhealthy fusion, but as a mutual celebration of each one's giftedness.

Genesis 8:22
As long as the earth endures, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night, shall not cease.

Thursday, February 7, 2013

A Cra$$ Subject


Tonight in talking about simplicity we touched on that subject that makes everyone cringe and try to slink away. You know that untouchable topic--money. One person said that it feels crass to talk about it--kind of like talking about the consistency of the contents of a baby's diaper.

I know what they mean. I don’t like it anymore than the next person, maybe even less, especially when someone starts to meddling with my private affairs. My parents would not ever say how much they made. In fact, they said it was none of our business. Maybe that has something to do with my discomfort.

During college, I went home with a friend for a visit. I was instructed that there were three areas of discussion that were verboten: money, sex and religion. These days it’s mostly money that can’t be discussed; religion is second; and sex is not on the list at all these days.

Another person at the table said that when her son was almost getting to his teen years, she sat down with him to show him how much she made, how much other income there was. And then she started marking down all the expenses--mortgage, insurance, food, clothes, savings, etc. At the end, there was “this much” money left. It made a huge impression on him.

What a great and open way to approach the subject. I think I need to get a little less uptight about it, then it would have less power in my life perhaps. After all, Jesus talked far more about money and our relationship with it than almost any other subject.



Matthew 6.24:
No one can serve two masters; for a slave will either hate the one and love the other, or be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and wealth.