The posture of breathing . . .

- so it never fails. When i least expect a moment with the indwelling Spirit - it happens.
- Breathing itself models the Christian life.
We breathe in the breath of life. We are filled with oxygen. Our lungs expand. Blood flows throughout our body, into the brain, and we move. Inevitably, we have to breathe out. We have to let it go; and in humility, our lungs contract; we shrink down. And once again, we are dependent on the next breath of air to survive.

We breathe in the Holy Spirit, and He expands us; enabling us to participate in the story of God. But, when we do anything, we end up breathing out in the process; and our small exhale is a humble response to what we were just given. And we shrink; not in shame, or guilt; but out of humility.
- so the moral of this is, don't hold your breath. It's not the way you were made ;)

The posture of Love

- had a great phone convesation with my cousin, Melanie last night. She is part of Madonna House, a community of lay and ordained folks living vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience. We talked about many things, but she said two things which i'm chewing on right now:

1. The greatest posture of love is the posture Jesus took on the cross; it's all gift; you can't cling to anything, or grasp at anything when your arms are that stretched out; and you will inevitably get crucified when you love like that. But that true posture of love doesn't depend on whether you recieve anything in return.

2. People put their eyes to Jerusalem (spiritually speaking here), and all of our focus is on that. But we don't journey to Jerusalem FROM Nazareth - the place of unassuming nothingness; the place where the world looks as says, "what good could come out of that?"; the place of humility.

- So i'm trying to journey to Jerusalem now, but starting from Nazareth.