The Space Between

There is a space between 

the taking and the letting 

of each breath drawn cross our lips.
Our chest filled with air,
we don’t hold the breath
as much as pause
and ponder that
each life begins
with an inhale.
An each life ends
with an exhale.
And between the two
Is a space
just large enough for God to fill,
whether over the whole of life
or just one single breath.

Breath

Life begins for each of us with an inhale.  And it ends, for all of us, with an exhale.  They are, biologically speaking, involuntary responses from the autonomic nervous system.  In between those two breaths we have choice: we can allow our autonomic nervous system to control our every breath, or we can, from time to time, take control of our breath and become aware of the miracle of breathing.  

We can feel the coolness of the air passing into our nostrils and the warmth of our body as it passes back out.  We can feel our belly rise and fall.  We can sit in wonder as we picture that life giving breath filling every capillary in our lungs, providing oxygen to our blood.

Most of all we can simply pay attention to our breath, slowing the pace of our racing thoughts to a crawl and then a standstill.  And in the silence of our own being we can for once, be.  And we can experience the wonder of a breath taken.  The miracle of a breath released.  And if we pause in between for just a moment between inhale and exhale, hold that involuntary response to release, we might just find a space as large as eternity and as small as that moment.  A space that is just large enough for God to reveal himself and small enough for us to understand his love.

Breath.

The Great Before

This is a photo from the great before.  We four were at a Braves game on Family Night, the guests of an incredibly proud Griffin.  My work affords me front row seats right behind home plate, in front of the Braves batting circle with a gourmet buffet.  But as we waited out a rain delay and took our hot dogs and beers to sit as far from home plate as you can get in Truist Park, we were sitting in the best seats in the house. Griffin’s gift to us.

That’s the thing about great befores. They’re nostalgia.  Nostalgia is a Greek word formed from two words: nostos, meaning homecoming, and algos, meaning pain or ache.  The word was coined by a 17th century physician to describe the homesickness Swiss mercenaries felt when they were hundreds of miles away from home.  In the wake of the great before, nostalgia is the pain of a wound that won’t heal because somebody you love isn’t coming home.  And the only healing of that pain is when finally you’ve come home to them.

It's hard to believe that we are more than two years past my son’s death.  And the pain, if anything, is more intense than it was in the days and weeks after his passing.  The difference is only my ability to stow away those feelings just long enough each week that life can move forward.  And then there is the moment the photo appears on a screen saver and I look past the four people in the photo and remember the fifth in our family who isn’t in the photo, or in our lives except in our memories.

This was the great before.  And now we live with the pain of loss with only the hope, the belief in the great hereafter.