Choose joy

When you arise in the morning think of what a privilege it is to be alive, to think, to enjoy, to love ...”

                     Marcus Aurelius, Meditations

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each morning comes with a choice

 

how am I going to embrace this day!

 

as we emerge out of our sleep

out of that space

where dreams, perhaps come true

or perhaps terrorize

 

out of that time where real and imagined

past and future

good and bad

mix and match and explode inside our heads

 

before our feet ever hit the floor

 

we have a choice

 

how will we embrace this day?

how will we frame it!?

what will we carry into it?

 

will we enter the day angry, or joyful?

full of love, or full of hate?

anxious, or peace filled?

 

this morning I awoke, less than eager for the day

they sky was still dark

the room was cold (it is only 17 outside)

and though my calendar is full

 

my soul felt empty

 

I am feeling my age these day

And struggling to stay attached to purpose

struggling to feel relevant

 

and I did not want to embrace the day

I did not want to enter the day

 

I could not sense the imperative to rise

why bother?

 

as I often say

“everything hurts, and what doesn’t hurt doesn’t work!”

 

And so I lay there, staring into the darkness

 

Thinking of an anthropomorphic “god” did not help

 

but then I started to breath God!

Richard Rohr (2/6 Meditation) reminds us that

perhaps the name of that reality we call God

the Sacred Tetragrammaton YWHH,

should not be spoken, but breathed

 

YH on the captured in-breath, and WH on the offered out-breath

 

so I started to breathe God

I started to breathe the mystery

in and out

receiving and sharing

 

finding God my “ breath itself—the thing [I] have done since the moment [I was] born and will one day cease to do in this body”  (Rohr)

 

Ah!

Yes!

 

“God is as available and accessible as our breath itself.

Jesus breathes the Spirit into us as the very air of life”  (Rohr)

 

I breathe in

I breathe out

the empty spaces are filled

accepting, letting go

receiving, giving

 

healing in, healing out

life in, life out

love in, love out

 

Ah, yes!

That is why I am here!

 

to breathe in the sunrise

and breathe out joy

 

to breathe in horse snuggles

and breathe out compassion

 

to touch every life

I encounter this day

 

with the sweet breath of God’s love