by Anna Russell Thornton
[This blog is a reflection on the second week in our Lenten guide, “The Art of Presence: Practices for the Time of Lent.” This guide encourages daily habits oriented toward core, spiritual practices—in this week’s case, the Art of Breath Prayer. If you’d like to receive these short, weekly guides, you can sign up for the weekly email by clicking here.]
Some years ago, one of my students, a small sunburst of a fourteen-year-old, could not channel his energy productively in class. I stepped into the hall with him and said, “First, I need you to take a deep breath with me.” He rolled his eyes and said, “Aw no, Miss, not breath practice!”
This was the year I had started incorporating breathwork into the beginning of every class period. Together, my students and I took five deep breaths, inhaling for four counts, holding for seven, and exhaling for eight. That my student’s mind went immediately to breath practice delighted me. The practice was sticking with him, even if begrudgingly so.
The breath of God flows through the story of Scripture. The Book of Genesis opens, “in the beginning…the earth was formless and empty, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters” (1:2). The Hebrew word translated “Spirit of God” is rûaḥ, meaning Spirit, or wind, or breath. Rûaḥ gets translated into Greek as pneuma, the word used for the Holy Spirit. Before creation, there was the Spirit-breath of God. God breathed life into Adam and Eve, and His creative power dwelt in them. Jesus exhaled on the cross as He gave up His spirit to protect ours. In a great wind, the Holy Spirit came down at Pentecost and dwells in our bodies now.
When we pay attention to our breath, we are connecting to the creative power of God in us. That sounds metaphorical, but it is entirely literal. When we breathe, we create. Breath brings oxygen into our blood. It makes our hearts pump. It expresses our emotions without words (gasp! sigh…). It gives rise to our voices when we comfort a friend, protest injustice, and sing praises to God. We hold our breath, hoping we won’t be discovered for the broken, vulnerable creatures we are.
Because we are filled with the breath of life, we can use our breath to tell a different story, one that resists what our fear and shame would have us believe. The truth is: we are created by the rûaḥ that hovered over the face of the waters before the world was made; redeemed by the final breath of Jesus on the cross; and sustained by the holy pneuma, the companion who is always with us. We don’t need the right words; we don’t need our own words at all. It is enough to be in and breathe in the presence of God.
Each year after I introduced breath practice, I asked my students to reflect on their experience. Some connected to it right away; others found the practice boring and dumb. But one student’s reflection has stuck with me. In the fall of 2020, as we sat at home staring at dark squares of initials on a screen, she wrote: “I felt a little feeling that I was free.”
May our bodily practice of breath prayer teach our minds and hearts that, in Christ, we are truly free.
The Practice: Practicing repeated prayer balanced by regular breathing to emphasize prayer as a present conversation with the God who formed us through his life-giving breath.
The Point: Getting out of our own “way” with prayer—making it less about our words and more about God’s Spirit with us.
The Purpose: How does attending to my breath help me find connection with the Holy Spirit?
Key Verse: John 3:1–8