On the Minister's Mind

by Rev. Laine Morgan

If you have listened to many of my lessons, you know that often I will pause and ask you to “take a deep breath.”  Typically, I interject that instruction because I suddenly sense that the room is collectively holding their breath, or perhaps breathing very shallow.  I can feel it in the room, and it tends to happen when the topic is touching in some way, revealing something heartfelt.  I just don’t want you to forget to breathe, to allow it all in.

I seem to hold my breath when the moment seems too big for me to take in.  Those moments tend to be full of big emotions.  Maybe I am in the presence of someone awe inspiring, or watching a puppy be born and waiting for them to start to wriggle, or witnessing injustice on a large scale, or taking in applause directed my way, or facing someone whose cruelty I cannot fathom.  For you see, it doesn’t matter the type of emotion, the intensity is what matters.  Intensity takes our breath away. 

In addition to emotional intensity on the human level, I have found that experiences of the divine on the spiritual level, also take my breath.  My breath escaped me when I first stood on the edge of the Grand Canyon and felt the expanse of beauty before me.  It also left during the calm of the eye of Hurricane Milton last year.  I can’t breathe when love breaks through barriers of division, or when snow falls peacefully in the night sky.  Perfect harmony can stop my breathing too.  When I notice God and pay attention, breathing somehow seems unnecessary. 

Maybe we don’t get to decide what takes our breath, but we do get to choose where we place our attention and what we personalize enough to do it. 

The great spoken word artist and poet, Andrea Gibson, wrote about this when they said –

“and I wonder if Beethoven held his breath
the first time his fingers touched the keys
the same way a soldier holds his breath
the first time his finger clicks the trigger.
We all have different reasons for forgetting to breathe.”

Wow.  And, for that matter, much of Andrea Gibson’s writing takes my breath too. 

Get familiar with your personal awe-inspiring, deeply emotional, wildly spiritual breathtaking moments.  They are what make us feel alive as humans but also connected with God as the souls that we are.