the breath of God, wednesday

Wednesday, June 11

Come to Stillness: Take a few minutes to allow your mind and heart to be still before God.

Opening Prayer: O Loving God, who breathed me into being, breathe your Divine Breath in me again this day—that I might be filled with your life and guided by the winds of your Spirit.  For the sake of your Son.  Amen.

Scripture Reading for the Day: Ezekiel 37:1-14

Reading for Reflection:

 

When ancient man confronted the mystery of death, which is also the mystery of life—when he looked at the body of a dead man and compared it with himself as a living man and wondered at what terrible change had come over it—one of the first things that struck him apparently was that whereas he himself, the living man, breathed, the dead man did not breathe.  There was no movement in his chest.  A feather held to his lips remained unstirred.  So to be dead meant to have no breath, and to be alive—to have the power to rise up and run and shout in the world—meant to have breath.  And the conclusion, of course, was that breath was not just the little wisps of air that men breath in and out, but that it is the very animating power of life itself.  Breath is the livingness of those who are alive.  This is why in so many languages the word for breath comes to mean not only the air that fills the lungs but the Mystery and power of life itself that fills a living man.  Such is the Latin word spiritus, from which our word spirit comes. (The Magnificent Defeat by Frederick Buechner)

Reflection and Listening: silent and written

Prayer: for the church, for others, for myself

                                           

Closing Prayer: O God, without your Spirit within us we are just a valley of dry bones—lifeless, barren, and dead.  Give us your Breath, O Lord, that we may be raised to new life, and glorify your name forever.  Amen.