Posted on Wednesday 19 November 2008
Turkey Dinners, Breathing, and the Dark Side of the Moon
I got home the other night after a long day at “work.” I’m a youth pastor and so Sunday is a work day for me. This last Sunday was particularly long because we had our church Thanksgiving Dinner that evening.
I arrived at the church around 8:30 that morning so that i could get a firm count of the chairs in our church auditorium (yes, if you were a youth pastor then you too would experience the simple joy of counting chairs in a church). We then had a combined service with the Four Square Church that rents our facility on Sunday afternoons (which is more involved than it may sound). After the service, we rearranged the auditorium, moving and stacking all of the chairs, bringing in tables to seat 200, table cloths, centerpieces, set up a make-shift kitchen to serve food out of, cooking and prepping food in the actual kitchen…
It was a busy day at Living Waters Chapel.
Lots of labor,
Some serious tension as we decided how the tables were to be set,
Then there was dinner.
AND the clean-up.
I left the church at about 8:45 that evening (that’s a 12 hour work day) being quite tired from all of the labor AND the tension AND the drained feeling that I get after “counseling” with teenagers AND the overwhelming anxiety that I often feel when in a crowded room. I pulled up to my apartment expecting to see my room-mates’ cars in the driveway, but they weren’t there. I walked into the apartment, it was chilly, the air was a little stale, and there was a pervading silence-save from the quite sound of traffic driving over the hill on Highway 18-that is uncommon in my apartment.
For a moment, I was a little sad, I had wanted to chat with my room-mates, they ALWAYS have bizarre stories to tell (or at least normal stories that they turn bizarre in the telling) but they weren’t home. It was just me and a dark apartment.
I decided to do something that I don’t commonly do but realize that I should do more often.
I am a rather hyper-active individual-at least my mind is-and I always need something to do, but I decided to do nothing.
I walked to the refrigerator and pulled out a chilled creme soda, (I love creme soda when it is really cold) pulled a “goblet” from the shelf, (creme soda is always better in a goblet) and poured the sweet refreshing beverage appreciating very greatly the soothing “fizz” sound that any soda makes when you pour it out.
I walked-goblet in hand-into the living room. I turned on my iPod and decided that I needed to listen to something that would fit the zen-like ethos that I was trying to achieve.
Pink Floyd.
Dark Side of the Moon.
I set my drink on my glass coffee table and leaned back into the large over-stuffed chair that a friend gave to my room-mates and I when we moved in and sipped down my soda as I stopped thinking and simply soaked in the music.
It may sound odd, but I felt as though the whole experience was something transcendent, as though sitting in the dark in my living room listening to Pink Floyd was somehow something bigger. I breathed deeply and intentionally. I let my cool beverage sit in my mouth, saturating every taste bud before swallowing. In spite of the music, I could hear my heart-beat.
Sometimes I feel as though life can suffocate people. Our economy is unstable and that has a lot of people very worried. I know a Respiratory-Therapist that is having trouble finding work in his field and who is working in landscaping while he searches. We have a new President-Elect and I know a lot of people that are unhappy that he won the election and worried that he might erase our freedoms. Just the other day I had one of my students tell me that he was beaten by his step-dad until he was old enough to defend himself.
Sometimes life can feel like it is suffocating you,
and perhaps it is.
As I breathed slowly, savored every drop of my soda, and let my soul fly with the screaming guitar solos of Pink Floyd, I felt as though I was taking a few moments to lift my head above the surface and take a breath.
I just heard today that children in Africa and other undeveloped regions take an average of 5-6 breaths in a minute. American children take between 18-20 breaths a minute. Doctors say that the slower pace of breathing is more healthy, that at 5-6 breaths a minute you get 80-90% of the energy that your body needs to survive, while at 18-20 breaths you only receive about 10-20% of the energy that your body needs.
We all need to breathe.
We need to breathe deeply.
We need to savor every ounce of flavor upon our tongues.
We need to be lost in something beautiful.
We need to shake free the fetters of a culture that would trample us underfoot at a pace faster than the one that we are breathing at.
Sitting in a dark apartment, drinking a cold soda, listening to deep music, all reminded me that I need to take the time to stop doing and just listen to the still small voice of a God that wants me to breathe. Perhaps my dark apartment became a bit of Holy Ground in that moment, perhaps that soda became my Eucharist, and maybe Pink Floyd fell in tune with the chorus of heaven, but whatever it was, it felt as though heaven reached down and for the first time in a while I took a breath of pure oxygen.
Jesus, help us to stop from all of our busy-ness so that we can embrace the simple beauty of the lives that you have given us.
Grace.
Peace.
-m





