Yet

Thank You for this little gift. A given-prayer, found tucked between two nondescript sentences in my journal...


"Yet"

I remember

our walks,

when I was

a child.


On no-moon

nights,

there were

yet

stars.

What is Breath Prayer?

Morning was making it's way, slow, into my room. Was it 5:00 am? It seemed so. Except for the breathing of my spouse beside me, the whole house sat quiet.

And I was drifting in my thoughts. About breath prayer.

"Breathe in a name for God," I remembered Adele Calhoun's counsel from her Spiritual Disciplines Handbook. "Breathe out a deep desire of your heart."

In the stillness of my room, where night still clung to the walls, trying to hide from day's advance, I had no particular desires. But soon a small prayer drifted in.

I breathed in... Lover of my Soul

I breathed out... give me lovingkindness.

It was a prayer given for the day, before the day came. A prayer I knew, upon later waking to true day, that I would need. Busy day, Little One up early and too chatty, me feeling like I want to be alone. Everything sounding too loud, looking too bright, feeling too constrictive. Me wanting to pick at people or push them out. Leave me alone!

Breath prayer. A simple prayer to repeat in time of need. To remind me, in a single cycle of breathing, that God is "nearer to [me] than [my] own breath" (Calhoun, p.205) Breath prayer. A simple prayer to remember who God is and what God might do.

Lover of my Soul, give me lovingkindness.

Lover of my Soul, give me lovingkindness.

Lover of my Soul, give me lovingkindness...

Twice Given

I talked to Charity yesterday. So, so good to hear her voice. What could I say? We chatted about all things physical— the pain of her cancer, the never-ending complications. We talked about my book. (God bless her, she wanted to talk about me.) I wanted to give something to her. A snippet of prayer.

The night before, I'd been reading A Sacred Sorrow, reading the Davidic Laments section. This is where I took my little thread of prayer from, the little raggedy bit of hope that I wanted to extend across all the miles between us.

Then this morning, I came downstairs and my bible was open on the table. It was open and the little prayer snippets I'd seen in Card's book were there, underlined and staring up at me from the page. So now, these are the prayers, twice given to me and shared yesterday with Charity... and I turn them back to you, Yahweh, Mighty God...

Into your hand I commit my spirit;
you have redeemed me, O LORD, faithful God....

But I trust in you, O LORD;
I say, "You are my God."
My times are in your hand..." (Psalm 31:5, 14-15)