Last night as we began our Ash Wednesday service, we also began a time of living into the theme: My Breath, My Body, My Prayer. Woven throughout the words we spoke and the music we sang was the invitation to pay attention to this trio of words…..breath, body, prayer. Over the next 46 days we will read more, reflect on and talk about this theme. The hope is that in shining the light on these three simple words we will find ways to also experience the breath, body and prayer of the one we follow on this journey. Jesus.
At the same time we are exploring this theme we are also encouraging people to read and be in conversation about the book Sabbath: Finding Rest, Renewal, and Delight in Our Busy Lives by Wayne Muller. As I have reflected on this intersection of theme and book, it seems that each inform the other. Or at least that is our hope. Time will tell if our instincts are correct.
Breath….this invigorating action, this life force that keeps us moving. Body…..the house of spirit and hopes and dreams. Prayer…..that communication between human fleshiness and the One who created us and continues to invite us into a co-creative relationship more often than we like to admit. I often forget the dance these three do together. Do you? I must constantly remind my head and heart to be present in my earthly home-body. To breath, deeply, regularly, fully, passionately, quietly. And then to pray……connecting through words, silence, and simply being with the Sacred that threads through it all.
This forgetting is the ‘gift’ of living in busyness. I know it. You probably know it, too. And yet we keep on as if we didn’t know better. My understanding is that this remembering, this knowing is the true gift of practicing Sabbath. It was offered to us at Creation,in the wilderness with our Hebrew ancestors and through the life of Jesus. And so, I am thankful to be weaving a tapestry of these three words with the wisdom of Muller’s book. ” If busyness can become a kind of violence, we do not have to stretch our perception very far to see that Sabbath time – effortless, nourishing rest – can invite a healing of this violence.” Who couldn’t use more of that?
As I begin this Lent, I am breathing, I am caring for my body and honoring its gifts to me. And I am committing myself to prayer…..a communion with the Holy in all the ways I can imagine or that may be presented to me. I am not doing any of this by making lists of ways to do it or in pushing myself to accomplish this task of remembering. Instead I am trying…..as best I can…..to rest and fall gently into it all.
“God does not want us to be exhausted. God wants us to be happy.”, Muller writes. And I think this means even in Lent.
