Breathing!

May 25, 2012 By Elizabeth Nordquist Leave a Comment

It’s the day to take a Big Breath: PENTECOST!

Jesus breathed on them and said to them,”Receive the Holy Spirit.”               John 20:22

I am ready for fresh breathing, new winds, brisk energy. The practices and disciplines of Lent and Eastertide have made demands on my awareness and behavior. Although those practices have kept me close to the Source of All Being, I am ready for a fresh infusion of Grace and Power to fill me. I am not sure I even want pyrotechnics, if only I can breathe more deeply, purely, truly.

Hildegard of Bingen seems to have lived with this Breath as her lifeline, her mainstay. She described herself as being a “feather on the Breath of God.” (See post for Lent 3-Spirit Walking). The Spirit self-discloses the Holy One as she floats on its jet stream:

I am the breeze that nurtures all things green. I encourage blossoms to flourish with ripening fruits. I am led by the spirit to feed the purest streams. I am the rain coming from the the dew that causes the grasses to laugh with the joy of life.

Those are the sensations for which my soul longs this Pentecost! Greenness, ripeness, purity. laughter and joy! Fruit of the Spirit’s breath! And Jesus offered it as a gift in perpetuity.

I receive the Spirit. Now how do I open myself to its beauty and refreshment this Pentecost?  I need first to be still enough to notice where the Spirit is blowing. What is greening in my world? what is greening in me? what sensations are in my body and soul and mind? I need to use the gifts that come from Breath Prayer, sitting quietly  enough to receive the breath I am being given. As I sit, I notice how much clutter has accrued in the passageways, swirling, flurrying, and there is a hitch in my constricted breath, prompted by grief, weariness, bafflement. So I breathe, “Come, Holy Spirit, blow away the blockages, cleanse the passageways, loosen the debris of memory, regret and judgement.” A cleansing, healing breath is needed, like the ones in learned to activate while preparing for my child to be born.

As the Breath of God claims my lungs and breath, I feel energy begin to flow. I notice that in the absence of clutter, ideas and possibilities begin to glimmer. New openings are sparkling: “Come, Holy Spirit, in your creative Wisdom. Show me what you have for me to do, who you have for me to love, how I can get from Point A to Point B and beyond. Show me the way where I do not see a way.”

Then the Breath brings energy, energy that lifts me out of the amber in which I feel stuck, into the flow of activity that touches, changes, liberates and challenges. “Come. Spirit,” I breathe; “propel me to that phone call, that visit, that letter of concern, that stretching to be present, that will be be the hands, feet and voice of the Holy One for good  in this world.”

I have had an amazing experience of receiving Breath this week. Having expended great gusts of gale force winds in the past weeks, I needed to sit still. Like Elijah of old, in exhaustion I am tempted to gloom and despair even as I know in my intellect that rest will bring restoration. But, as I sat and breathed, the Spirit began to make Herself known in my body and soul again, first swooshing away the flotsam and jetsam that are no longer useful, then appearing like prickles of excitement as new ideas, promptings, hope make themselves palpable; and finally, the thrust that has taken me out of my place of restoration back into the dance again.

O teacher of those who know,

a joy to the wise

is the breath of Sophia.

Praise then be yours!                                                                                   

you are the song of praise,

the delight of life,

a hope and a potent honor

granting garlands of light.

Sequence for the Holy Spirit, Hildegard of Bingen, Barbara Newman, trans.

 


Filed Under: Hildegard of Bingen, Holy Spirit, Pentecost Tagged With: Leave a Comment

To Complete the Joy

May 15, 2012 By Elizabeth Nordquist 1 Comment

The Resurrection is just the beginning!  Joy comes for the disciples of Jesus when they discover that he is risen, but he has told them that they will need to be the ones who bring that new reality to the world. Last Sunday’s gospel lesson from John reminds us the he has laid it out for  them in the words of that last long conversation with them in the room where they were in preparation for the world turning upside down:

As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you; abide in my love. If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have  kept my Father’s commndments and abide in his love. I have said these things to you so that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be complete. This is my commandment that you love each other as I have loved you.                                                                                             John 15:9-12

To get the full effect of resurrection life, we need to love. So keeping up my Eastertide practice of listening for signs of the resurrection, I listened for love this week. Here is some of what I heard:

  • someone took the time to compose a thoughtful, personal letter to one leaving a position after many years; the letter was filled with astute observation, open-hearted admiration and gentle humor
  • someone celebrated in words and hugs the restored health of a friend, welcoming them back to the community
  • someone drew and wrote a hand-made greeting for Mother’s Day
  • someone kept her silence when she could have slain her conversation partner with witty and lethal repartee
  • someone not  only signed a petition for the ballot asking for justice for many  by  himself, but carried that petition to others for their signature as well
  • someone offered to help out a friend after surgery–driving, feeding, companioning, erranding, just being present
  • someone held up a mirror to a speaker whose words had been hurtful and divisive, asking for a difference in tone and attitude
  • someone told the truth publicly about an action that was being taken, in order for it to be seen for what it really was, rather than the way it was spun in all the rhetoric that flowed around it
  • someone risked making a phone call to see if he was all right

And so it went, and so it goes—words and deeds of Love, offered in the power of the Resurrection. And our joy is completed!

All that loving-kindness in small ways, trailing clouds of joy, has made me mindful of my own words–the choice, the tone, the aptness, the timing. Words are my primary medium of being love to others. So I look at my calendar to see where words of love need to be offered today and this week–in quiet conversation, in group discussion, in marital decision making, in entertaining guest, in welcoming friends, in greeting neighbors, in celebrating a birthday, in delighting in family, in  worshipping—even in writing this blog. “Let the words of my mouth…be acceptable to you, O God,” and may my joy be complete, as well as the joy of the ones I am given to love and serve.

 

Filed Under: Eastertide, spiritual practice Tagged With: 1 Comment
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