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From July 30, 2006 In Thursday's yoga class here at the church, Tim introduced us to a simple practice, one that I invite you to take part in this morning from your place in the pews. It's wonderfully restorative, takes no time at all to master, and is something you can do when you're stopped at a red light or are in line at Kroger. Let's try for a moment or two what Tim taught on Thursday. We're just going to do two things: breathe and pay attention. So if you would, simply take a slow, gentle breath. Good. And then when your lungs are full, see if you can't take in just a little bit more air. Don't exhale just yet; hold that breath for a moment. Now go ahead and breathe out. Let your lungs empty and then, as you did before, pause ever so briefly. See if you can't push just a little more air out of your lungs before breathing in again. Good. Take in your second breath. And again, when your lungs feel full, see if you can't inhale a tiny bit more. Hold this breath and then let it out again. At the bottom of this breath, just as before, empty your lungs just a tad more. Wait. Now breathe again. Fantastic! (Just a few minutes of this practice can relax and refresh you.) OK. So what's with the yoga breathing? Lots! Lots that can help us expand and enrich our faith. Whenever Tim leads class, he consistently but ever so gently challenges us to do something you just got a taste of. Whether our focus is on the breath or whether it's a bend or a twist or a movement of some kind, Tim is good at gently challenging us to go just a little further, a little deeper, a little bit past what feels comfortable. Why? Because no matter how fit or how flabby, no matter whether we are a first-timer or a long-timer at this, we each have an edge we can push. There is always room to grow. There is always some new possibility to explore. What Tim is teaching is more than a strategy for building strength and flexibility in the body. It's a way of approaching life, a way of reminding ourselves that what feels natural, what feels familiar, what we've grown accustomed to may not be all there is for us. As in yoga, as in life, so with our faith, too. Faith--like health--doesn't just something we're born with. It needs to be supported and nurtured. For faith to flourish, for it to be supple and strong, it's important to pause from time to time to take in a deeper faith-breath. How do we keep religious stiffness at bay? We lovingly challenge ourselves to stretch beyond our self-imposed limits. How to we build strength in the body of our faith? We become mindful--intentional, purposeful - about taking in and letting out just a little more than we have grown accustomed to. This is what helps keep our faith limber and lively. The practice of stretching our faith is what keeps us spiritually healthy. Untended faith can resemble the untested breath. You may not realize how restricted it has grown until something leaves you gasping. Unchallenged faith, like the unchallenged body, can lose its resilience or strength by imperceptible increments. Something you don't notice until one day you discover that it doesn't offer the joy of movement it once did. Hear again the apostle's prayer from Ephesians: I pray that, according to the riches of his glory, he may grant that you may be strengthened in your inner being with power through his Spirit and that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith, as you are being rooted and grounded in love. I pray that you may have the power to comprehend, with all the saints, what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, so that you may be filled with the fullness of God. Filled with the fullness of God. Isn't this a gorgeous hope the apostle holds out for us--that we be filled with the fullness of God? This prayer trusts the abiding richness of God's glory. But more than that, it calls upon God to help us enter into lives that are boundless and rich and profoundly grounded in the only thing that truly matters - divine love. Who knows how vast life in and with God can be? No one, not even Jesus, has experienced or explored completely God's terrain of love. With God there is always far more than we could ever ask or imagine. But for those willing to push the edges of faith there is always one more new discovery, one new horizon to move toward. As with the breath, as with the body, there is always just a little further we can go with and in God. There is always a little more bend, a little more flex, a little more strength to be found, a little more capacity in our spiritual lungs--if we are willing to keep company with the unexplored edge. The unexplored edge - there is always something new waiting to be given to those who are willing to stretch just a little beyond what has become familiar. Maybe that edge for you this morning is prayer. For as long as you can remember you have quieted your mind a few minutes after turning out the lights and going to sleep. There in the dark you go over your day, offering up thanks for its gifts, asking God's help where help is needed. It feels comfortable, this prayer you have breathed in and out for some time. But, as we learned just a few minutes ago, maybe there is some new capacity you have for prayer that you didn't even realize you had. Some new joy to be found as you work prayer's edge, by staying there a little longer, by taking it a little further or a little bit deeper than you typically do. Maybe there's a gentle stretch that holds fresh gift. Maybe your spiritual edge isn't prayer at all. Maybe it's devotional reading. Something you rarely push yourself to do but which, when you do it, leaves you feeling refreshed and recharged. Maybe neither of these edges is yours right now. As you listen to your life, as you consider where your faith is lively and where it isn't quite lively enough, maybe you notice that your compassionate side is less flexible than it used to be. It used to come so naturally for you to be caring and understanding. But now, there's a certain kind of stiffness in your joints, a particular no-go there that catches you off guard and concerns you. How did that happen, you wonder as you pause to notice this change in yourself. This awareness becomes the edgy, slightly uncomfortable place you go. Being there is what allows you to gradually loosen and free up your capacity for compassion. The love of Christ, as the apostle suggests, has a height, depth, breadth, and length that cannot be exhausted by the workings of heart or mind, our spiritual body. There is always an edge, always a greater capacity that Christ gently calls us to explore. Perhaps the edge God is calling you to work isn't a behavior but a belief. Maybe there is an attitude of the mind that needs more room to breathe. As I say this I think of someone who shared recently about grieving the unanticipated loss of a life-long friend. The friend was never much of a church-goer but while he was alive he had consistently made choices and had possessed priorities that seemed to run parallel to ones Jesus modeled. As we talked, the friend wondered aloud about the state of his buddy's soul. Was it held safe now in Christ's great arms? Or was it drifting, unmoored by God's love, because the man had not spent Sundays in worship? Is this not an edge, this unresolved ache in the soul of a friend left behind? Is this not an edge meant to be respected, an edge to be explored ever so gently, so that habitual ways of thinking about God and God's love might give way to something more expansive, something more spacious? Is God not there in the questions a caring friend asks, questions that serve as an invitation to expand the lungs of his faith? Something Tim said on Thursday keeps ringing in my ears. It's not just about the in-breath, he reminded us. It's not just about taking in more than we thought we could. When we exhale further than we usually do, when we let out that extra puff of breath, we are getting rid of "yesterday's air." Stale, dead air that occupies space that fresh, oxygen-rich air could easily fill. What for you is yesterday's spiritual air? What is occupying space in your faith life that isn't enlivening, something in need of release? Something fresh is waiting for you to exhale so that it can come rushing in to revitalize you. Something far more than you could ask or imagine. Something that enables you to be filled, just a little more fully, with the fullness of God. As a way to close this morning, I'd like to lead you through what in our tradition is called a breath prayer. But before I do, let me say this. Nearly every religious tradition understands that breath is sacred and that through respectful attention to the breath we can know God, and intimately. And so in that spirit, I invite you to enter into prayer with me: Breathing in, I am filled with God. Amen. © Rev. Karen Winkel |
"Never place a period where God has placed a comma." - Gracie Allen
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