Breathwork
by Dwight J. Friesen
Before you learned the names of things,
before you called anything sacred
or ordinary,
you were breathing.
The first sermon
was not spoken,
it entered your lungs.
Each inhale:
receiving what you did not create.
Each exhale:
returning what was never yours to keep.
The trees know this.
The rivers know this.
The moss creeping across a fallen cedar
knows this.
Only humans forget,
imagining flourishing
is something to achieve,
rather than something to join.
But flourishing is closer to breathing:
a participation,
a belonging,
a conversation
between body and place,
neighbor and stranger,
earth and heaven.
Perhaps this is why Jesus spoke
of seeds,
birds,
bread,
and vineyards.
The Kin-dom was never elsewhere.
It was always here,
breathing among us.
So may you breathe deeply
of the life already given.
May gratitude accompany your inhale,
and generosity your exhale.
And when you forget—
as we all do—
may the breath itself
call you home
Peace, dwight
“Breathwork”
