In my early twenties I had a case of viral pleurodynia, a
strange disease I’d never heard of before and haven’t encountered since.
I woke up one day with extreme pain in my lungs, so sharp I
felt like I couldn’t breathe. In the university clinic, my health provider at
the time, a nonchalant resident told me I had a cold, and to come back in
a week if I wasn’t feeling better.
I was in too much pain, and too short of breath, to argue that this was more than a cold.
I went home wondering if I’d be alive a week later.
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| Jos Speybrouck, Postcard reproduction "The Offering of Sacrifice", Belgium |
Lying flat on my bed, I found myself focusing on my breath.
Breathe in.
Breathe out.
If I kept my breath slow and shallow, the pain wasn’t quite
so bad.
In.
Out.
Try not to think. Try not to feel. Just focus on the breath.
Somewhere in the middle of that, I began to think of Jesus.
Jesus on the cross.
Trying to breathe.
I’d heard a bit about crucifixion: how the likely cause of
death was suffocation, as the victim struggled for breath and fluids began to
fill the sufferer’s chest.
I’d heard somewhere that the pain of the nails in limbs,
dislocated shoulders, would eventually be focused to the searing pain of lungs
struggling for breath.
In the fog of my own pain, I found myself praying “Jesus.”
Breathe in: Jesus.
Breathe out. Jesus.
He went willingly to face that death. Stood patiently while
accused. Refused to be an enemy.
I had never really thought about the painful cost of love
that held him there.
It was love he breathed, as his life slipped away.
My own breathing, and prayer, slowly shifted, as I thought
of his struggle for breath.
With every breath in: love. I am loved.
With every breath out: love. I am loved.
The pain came and went, sometimes lasting for hours. The
next day, my young husband Whitney went to church, determined to ask one of the
doctors in our congregation to come and check on me. I stayed flat on our bed,
breathing in, breathing out, until there were voices at the door, and cheerful
Dr. Chip (still practicing at HUP, all these years later) appeared with
stethoscope in hand.
Viral pleurodynia: an infection of the lining of the lung.
Not fatal, but in some cases terribly painful. He prescribed some
anti-inflammatory medicine, the strongest pain-killer he could think of, and
said he’d be back to see how I was doing. Whitney followed him out on the way
to the corner pharmacy and I went back to my focused breathing, still in pain,
more certain than ever that love was the air I was breathing in and out.
You can read through the scriptures, or sit in our churches,
and think the message is judgment.
But read again, with a quiet heart, and there’s the refrain,
again and again: love.
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| Jos Speybrouck, Illustration from Bijbelische Geschiedenis by Jos Keulers, 1937 Belgium |
Love delighting in the beauty of creation.
Love forming each of us with care and intimate interest.
Love leading an embattled people out of slavery into a land freedom.
Love warning of the suffering that would come from injustice
and misuse of gifts.
Love offering restoration.
Love gathering, carrying, singing, shepherding.
And then – the love we celebrate on this third Sunday of
Advent, and again on Good Friday, and Easter, and beyond:
Love putting on human form, to walk dusty roads, heal
abandoned lepers, struggle for breath through searing pain. Rising again to
invite us into everlasting love.
How often we miss that love.
How easily we forget it.
How badly we misrepresent it.
Yet that love breathed, then and now, into the hearts of the
most forgotten, abandoned, desperate, bewildered.
It speaks gently in dreams to women caught in brutal
marriages in countries where they have no rights, and those women wake to find
themselves proclaiming “Jesus.”
It calls to convicts in cells around the globe, and angry,
broken men find themselves gathering to sing the praise of Jesus.
It bubbles up in places of suffering, giving courage to
those who serve the sick and hope to those whose breath is slowly fading.
What a comfort to know that when our breath here ends, that
love we’ve been breathing goes on, welcoming us to a fuller, deeper knowledge
of that love.
One of the tasks of Advent is to slow down enough to feel
that love again.
To sit somewhere still, and breathe it in.
Then breathe it out.
We are called to love others, yet that’s hard to do when our
own souls are empty, anxious, hurried.
It’s easy to find ourselves with nothing to offer but
impatience and irritation.
Too busy to listen.
Too preoccupied to care.
Too depleted to do much more than go through the motions of
good will.
Inside, that little voice cries “I need.” “I want.” “What
about me?”
There have been times – too many to count – when I’ve found I have nothing more to give.
Nothing. Nothing at all.
Then I need to go find a quiet place: a back staircase in a
crowded building, the moss path behind my home, a path through the woods, a
chapel kneeler.
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| Jos Speybrouck, Illustration from Bijbelische Geschiedenis by Jos Keulers, 1937 Belgium |
And I need to wait, and breathe.
Not pray. There are times when even prayer is too hard.
I just breathe:
In.
Out.
Jesus in.
Jesus out.
Sometimes it happens quickly.
Sometimes it takes a while.
The haze in my head begins to clear.
The panic lifts.
The accusing voices fall silent.
My breath becomes calmer.
Sometimes I feel as if a warm blanket has been wrapped
around me. The warmth radiates through me: skin, muscle, bones, soaking in heat
like the warmth of the sun.
Sometimes I feel as if there’s a warm hand on my head: a
hand of blessing, or protection. Of love.
Sometimes words come to mind: words of scripture, reminding
me of love.
Or words I’ve never read or heard: a father’s words of love to
his anxious daughter. A close friend's words of counsel and challenge to a a fellow-traveler on the way.
Sometimes I can feel the weight simply lift: it was there,
then gone. Done. Not your worry. As simple as that. Miraculous.
Sometimes the weight remains, with a new resolve and courage
to face it. A sense that it isn’t mine to carry alone, that a stronger, wiser friend is walking right beside me.
Sometimes just a quiet sense of peace, so warm and still I could float off into sleep.
And always: love.
Love breathed in, and ready to breathe out.
Who would we be, if we spent more time in silence in the
presence of that love?
What would our churches look like?
How would our witness and worship change?
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| Jos Speybrouck, Illustration from Bijbelische Geschiedenis by Jos Keulers, 1937 Belgium |
Here’s an Advent prayer this season, for me, for you, for
all who dare to claim the name of Christ and all who wait in pain for a healing
breath of love:
Breathe it in.
Then go breathe out.
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| modification of Velden Floating Advent Wreath, Johann Jaritz, Austria, 2009 This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike Austria license. |
This is the third in a four week Advent series.
Earlier Advent posts on this blog:
Earlier Advent posts on this blog:
Advent
One: Hope is Our Work, Nov. 30, 2014
Advent Two: Peace is Our Promise, Prayer and Practice, Dec.
7, 2014
Advent
One: Rethinking Portfolios, Dec. 1, 2013
Advent Two: Resisting Idols and Injustice, Dec. 8, 2013
Advent Three: Redefining Home, Dec. 15, 2013
Advent Four: Rejoicing in Mystery, Dec. 22, 2013
Advent Two: Resisting Idols and Injustice, Dec. 8, 2013
Advent Three: Redefining Home, Dec. 15, 2013
Advent Four: Rejoicing in Mystery, Dec. 22, 2013
Advent
One: How Do I Know? Dec. 2,
2012
Advent Two: Outsiders In Dec. 9, 2012
Advent Three: Question. Fruit. Dec. 16, 2012
Advent Four: Sing Alleluia, Dec. 23, 2012
Advent Two: Outsiders In Dec. 9, 2012
Advent Three: Question. Fruit. Dec. 16, 2012
Advent Four: Sing Alleluia, Dec. 23, 2012
Advent One: What I'm Waiting for, Nov. 26, 2011
Metanoia, Dec 4, 2011
Voice in the Wilderness, Dec. 11, 2011
Common Miracles, Dec. 18, 2011
The Christmas Miracle, Dec. 24, 2011
Metanoia, Dec 4, 2011
Voice in the Wilderness, Dec. 11, 2011
Common Miracles, Dec. 18, 2011
The Christmas Miracle, Dec. 24, 2011
Advent Two: John the Baptist, Dec. 12, 2010
Mary's Song, Dec. 19, 2010
Christmas Hope, Dec. 24, 2010
Mary's Song, Dec. 19, 2010
Christmas Hope, Dec. 24, 2010
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