When You Need Permission to Just Breathe // Abby King Writes
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When You Need Permission to Just Breathe
If I’m honest, my nervous system is overwhelmed with trying to survive this present moment we find ourselves in. I’m unsettled and unsteady; anxious and edgy. I’m swimming along fine one moment and drowning under a wave of emotion the next. I’m learning to name this as grief, because that’s the truth of it.
It’s not just my grief, it’s the collective grief of us all. I’m grieving for the people who couldn’t be present as their loved one was dying. I’m grieving for the weary and overwhelmed care workers and NHS staff. I’m grieving for adults and children who have to stay inside in homes that are not safe. I’m grieving for those of us with no home at all to stay in. I’m grieving for my friend whose 4-year-old is going through cancer treatment in the midst of all this. I’m grieving for another friend whose lung disease means she’s isolated from her own family for the next 12 weeks. I’m grieving for the weak and the vulnerable who have been treated like collateral damage in this pandemic. I’m grieving for the loss of my own routines and communities that usually provide such strong anchor points for me. I’m grieving for the friends I can’t hug. I’m grieving for the loss of life as it once was.
It’s a lot to cope with, isn’t it?
And the thing about grief is, it doesn’t know anything about social isolation. It touches every part of you whether you try and keep your distance from it or not. You can’t just wash it away with the soap bubbles down the drain. You have to allow yourself to name it and feel it if you want to move through it. As Anne Lamott says, the only cure for grief, is grieving.
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In the Bible, the prophet Ezekiel tells of a vision he has about a valley, a vast area filled with dry bones. I picture the bleak, sun-bleached expanse in my mind’s eye; everything hushed and lifeless. I think about that dried up riverbed, cracked and parched. I think about how dusty those dried-up bones would be, covered in tiny particles of dirt and dead skin and other detritus.
Can these bones live?
Oh Lord, you alone know.
Sometimes I think we might need to stop a while and let the dust settle. Sometimes we need to lay down a while and let the ground we came from hold us steady. Sometimes we just need to be where we are, in this space we didn’t choose or expect, and consider the dusty bones of what was, that cover the ground in front of us. Perhaps we need to name those bones, sit with them a while and allow ourselves to ache for the loss of them.
Can these bones live?
Oh Lord, you alone know.
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Indigenous author, Jim Bear Jacobs, comments:
'In Genesis 2, the Creator reaches down to the earth and pulls humanity out of the earth. In Genesis 2, the Creator gets her hands dirty doing the work of creation… Our origin story is that we were midwifed by God, and the very breath of God was breathed into our nostrils.' [1]
In a beautiful parallel of this creation story, the next part of his vision sees the word of the Lord come through Ezekiel and recreate humanity out of the dusty bones. It then comes again to breathe life back into this company of people, raising them up out of their graves.
Throughout Scripture, the words breath, spirit and wind are used interchangeably. God breathes God’s own life into us, God’s own Spirit, God’s own self. In the Hebrew bible, God’s name, YHVH, uses the only consonants in Hebrew that are not articulated – they are, instead formed with the breath. It is often said, therefore, that every time we inhale and exhale, we are, in fact, speaking the name of God. [2]
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If there’s one thing my yoga class has taught me, it’s how to work with my breath. We inhale deeply, to fill the whole of our stomach and chest cavity with air. We exhale mindfully, sometimes holding that space at the bottom before we inhale again. We observe our breath, ensuring it is slow and steady. When our minds wonder, we notice our thoughts, and bring our attention back to the breath - one hand on your belly if it helps you stay connected to the rise and fall of your lungs. When we create different shapes, we move to the rhythm of our breath: inhale to lift up and open, exhale to deepen and surrender.
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If grief knows nothing of distancing, then neither does the breath of God. The Spirit goes where she wills, moving in and out of our own lungs with every inhale and every exhale. She moves in between the expanses that separate us, tying us together with our common humanity, our common dependence on oxygen. There is no place that cannot be reached by the breath of God.
To see what happens when we commit our spirit, our ‘breath’ into the hands of God, we need look no further than Jesus. He entrusted his life into God’s hands, and after that pause moment at the bottom of his final exhale, after those three days of acknowledging and sitting with the grief and pain, God breathed Jesus right back to life again.
And God, who midwifed creation into being, who spoke those dry bones back to life, who gave Jesus back his breath, breathes life into us, too. God is still in the business of midwifing us back to life.
I will breathe my Spirit into you and you will be alive once again. Ez. 37:14
If I want to find God in this season that holds so much grief, I only need to stop and breathe. I only need to remember it is God’s Spirit, God’s breath, God’s life that is sustaining me, staying as close and intimate with me as the oxygen I take in. All I need to do is inhale and exhale to stay connected with the Holy Spirit's comfort as I breathe through the pain. Inhale to open up, exhale to surrender. One hand on my belly as a reminder - the breath of God, right inside my own lungs.
[1] Jim Bear Jacobs, as quoted in Steve Wiens, Shining Like the Sun, (Fortress Press, 2020) 79-80. [2] I am indebted to Richard Rohr for this insight.
Reading Recommendations
Shining Like the Sun: Seven Mindful Practices for Rekindling Your Faith, by Steve Wiens
Steve's new book is hot off the press and it's beautifully written, and offers gentle wisdom. If you've read any of Steve's previous work, you'd expect nothing less. The book takes us through seven practices - attentiveness, ordinariness, simplicity, rhythms, conversation, delight, and restoration - which help us to reconnect with God and ourselves. I love the way that stories, personal experience, scripture and wisdom from other faith traditions are woven together to create a book that is both reflective and practical and brings hope and reassurance. I read a chapter each night of this first week of social distancing and it was the perfect thing for bedtime.
If you're a regular here, you'll know that I often review several books, but with times being what they are, I thought I would recommend some of the people who are currently helping me navigate the uncertainty of this moment.
Kate Bowler - as someone who has dealt with grief through a cancer diagnosis, Kate is a brilliant, thoughtful guide who is able to hold space for all the emotions we carry. Find her on social media @katebowler
Aundi Kolber - you'll already know that I love Aundi's wisdom and kindness, and she's doing a great job helping us to process our emotions and remember to be kind to ourselves. Find her on social media @aundikolber
Aaron Neiquist - I'm so thankful for Aaron's gentleness and his heart to help us meditate on and find God's presence and peace. He's currently offering 15 minute meditations on his podcast, aimed specifically at helping us navigate our current social situation. But if you have time, go back and listen to the previous sessions too, they're really good. Find him here
Brene Brown - her new podcast, Unlocking Us is well-worth a listen. As an experience courage, shame, vulnerability and empathy researcher, she has a lot of wisdom and practical help for us at the moment.
If meaty theology is more your thing, then The Bible Project and This Cultural Moment podcasts are both excellent.
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Yours from an appropriate social distance,
Abby