Musings

The book of Psalms ends with this declaration: “Let everything that has breath praise the LORD (YHWH).”

If you read through the last posts, you’ll note that God’s name is an action, rather than a noun or a verb, that God’s name (with its close connections to the Hebrew verb “to be”) is unpronounceable because God’s name is not spoken, but it rather breathed. Understanding that God’s name is the action of breathing in and out, we come to realize that God is at the center of all that is living – but more so than that – God is at the center of all that is. The psalmist declares that all that breathes, in coming to grasp the enormity of God’s presence is to give praise to God.

If we allow that to sink in a bit, we begin to realize that every time we breath in and out, we are expressing the name of God – whether we are conscious that we are doing so or not. What this reveals, even whether you believe in whatever you believe about God or not, what in reality is God is not so much our conceptions of God (however we acquired these conceptions), is that we have breath because God intentionally acted to breath life into us and as a result we became living beings (see Gen. 2:7).

So, in essence every time we breath, we are acting out the name of God. If we are aware of our breathing (especially when we become mindful of our breathing) and the source of our breathing, then we can with intention not only be mindful of our breath and breathing, but can actively celebrate the One who has breathed into us and gifted us to be living. Such active celebration is worship (verb, rather than noun). Such active celebration is giving praise to the One who gives us breath, who gives us life. We celebrate, not just to acknowledge God, but to participate in the action of God, to identify with the action of God, living actively as human beings who are humane, compassionate, loving, living – breathing.

So, YES, life is to be lived, celebrated! As the psalmist declares, “Let everything that has breath (breath that makes us living beings) praise the LORD (the One whose name can only be breathed.)” May we join in this giving of praise to the One who is at the center of all things.

Yet, often we find it difficult to breathe in such a way that gives praise, that celebrates life – we may be angry, frustrated, our breath spews out what does not lend itself to our flourishing or enabling the flourishing of others. Our overt preoccupation with ourselves distorts our breathing, our actions, our living. The next post offers some thoughts on how God became one of us in the person of Jesus, dwelt among us, for the purpose of restoring our breathing, restoring us (even, to re-story our lives), so that we might catch our breath again and be able to breath deeply – celebrating and giving praise to The One whose name we breathe.