The Next Breath

Nothing in life is so little that one cannot appreciate it. - Anonymous

In college, I had a friend that had severe asthma.   He and I talked one day about what happens when he had a severe attack.   It opened my eyes to what we all take for granted in this life:  our next breath.

He told me that sometimes his air passages would suddenly close down and breathing was like inflating a balloon using a coffee straw.   No matter how hard he tried to breathe in, he felt he was slowly suffocating.  Many times, he said, that his vision would start going dim; turning dark around the edges.   I cannot think of anything more scary than to use your utmost effort and energy just to take the next breath.

I so take life for granted.

Medically, we have no idea why we are alive.  There really is no reason why the next breath even comes.  Just imagine.   The very air coming into our lungs, the thousands of chemical reactions that take place in a second that transfer that oxygen to our bloodstream, is truly amazing.   It is the ultimate demonstration of faith that we actually can forget that we breath.   We can go to sleep without the fear that we will stop this cycle.

Yet, at any moment, we can choose to hold our breath; take in a deeper breath; breath shallow; breath into the upper chest; breath into the lower chest.   If you are a singer or play a brass instrument, you know all these ways of breathing.   Breath the wrong way and you cannot sustain the music, the notes, the song.

The analogy though goes far past just taking in the oxygen we need.   Breathing in is also taking in life.   Breathing out is making an expression of that life.  We express (push out) in response to what we have breathed in.

When we breathe in deeply, we affirm the life, the moment we are in, the significance of what is happening to us now.   We express the gratitude for this life, this moment in breathing out.

We breathe in and breathe out:  This is life.  When we take in good, we express good.   When we take in bad, we express bad.

What have you breathed in today?  What have you expressed out?