In the love I bear to Thee O my lord, my heart longeth for Thee With a longing such as no heart hath known [2x]
Here am I, here am I With my body between Thy hands And my spirit before Thy face
In the love I bear to Thee
In the love, In the love I bear
...
In the love, In the love I
...
In the love, In the love I
Oh...Oh...Oh...Oh...Oh...
* * *
Exploring how breath relates to God's presence, Will Johnson retreated at a Benedictine community. He writes, in Breathing as Spiritual Practice: Experiencing the Presence of God ...
I sit in the chapel. I follow the hymnal. I listen to the words during the soothing recitation of the morning's passage, and - as hard as this is for me to believe at first - I hear an answer! It comes from Psalm 119, the longest psalm in the Old Testament, whose words are sometimes attributed to the great Jewish king David himself:
in the night, Lord, I remember your name that I may keep your law
Hearing this passage, I have a revelation. In a flashing moment of recognition, I realize that a solution for how to traverse the dark night, whose spell I'm still under, may have just been shown to me. Remembering your name. Remembering your name in the dark night. How do I best remember to remember God's name? How? By listening to my breath.
* * *
Experiencing the Sacred can be as simple as mindful breathing. One can listen to the breath, following it in and out. Or they may wish to synchronize the breath with a prayer word or prayer phrase, such as in the practices of Christian Meditation, Centering Prayer, or Breath Prayer, each taught in the Christian faith.
The simplest way to pray with the breath is to breathe and know you are breathing, as taught in Buddhism and Centering Prayer. In this modality, the key is not adding anything to the breath but being fully present to the breath as breath - reverently present.
Being with the breath in this way is experiencing the Sacred - we do not need to complicate this experience or think it is just for a few enlightened or holy beings. We have lungs. There is air. We breathe. God!
*Brian's book, An Ache for Union: Poems on Oneness with God through Love, can be ordered through major online booksellers or the publisher AuthorHouse.
