Learning to Breathe: Developing a Healthy Rhythm for Life Andy Freeman - 21 May 2012

Breathe, keep breathing, don’t loose your nerve."
Radiohead, Exit Music.

Imagine...

It’s early and you’re lying awake, sunlight is creeping in behind the curtains and into your room, the walls glow with the early morning light.  It’s quiet, there’s no sound, except for your breathing.  In and out.  In and out.  It’s a rhythm that accompanies ever single one of our days.  It’ll keep going till you die. 

In our little journey into contemplative prayer through 24-7 Prayer Rooms and experiments with the concepts of monasticism, it was always breathing that had captured me.  How to learn a simple rhythm of God’s indwelling in me, and of my expression of that to others.

Breathing in... receiving from him.
Breathing out... sharing and giving to others.

It’s striking that life has rhythm.  Day and night.  The seasons.  Slow and busy.  Holiday and work.  Even our bodies .... our pulse, a heartbeat, breathing. 

As we share some old but new resources with you, we pray that God will help us all to breathe a little better and know Jesus a little deeper. 

At the centre of all of this is Christ.  Seems simple I know, and it is.  Bonhoeffer concluded that Christian Community exists “through and in Jesus Christ”.  We try and keep Jesus at the centre of all we do and say.  Simple.  He becomes our anchor, our fixed point, our distinctive.  Our rhythms and seasons all help to point towards Christ.

To holy people, the very name of Jesus is a name to feed upon, a name to transport.  His name can raise the dead and transfigure and beautify the living.”
John Henry Newman

Over the coming months Andy will be helping 24-7 Prayer develop a selection of resources we're calling Ancient Paths. Basically, it’s about learning from those who’ve gone before us, from the monastic movements and from the churches mothers and father’s who’ve developed spiritual practices which can help us today.

Over the coming months you’ll see some new resource sections emerge on the website.  You’ll see some regular articles and plenty of food for thought. By the end of the summer we also hope to be releasing an android/iphone app to  deliver some of this content and help us all pray wherever we might be.

Hopefully, these ideas and resources will help you and your friends develop good rhythms of life which sustain your walk with God, your friendships, your health and your own identity.