Tag Archives: breath

by | January 26, 2016 · 9:55 pm

Seek and You Will Find…

In the distance, the mountains call.

“Seek and you will find…”imagesQ53ZSJ8P

The fluid movement of the gulf stream pushes against my will. Below me, the sands swirl in undulating patterns, to and fro, as the current continues to empty the back bay. My air is nearly depleted, but I push on, stretching the limits of my endurance until the forbearance of life thrusts me up, bursting through the surface just as my lungs explode in a forceful exhalation of water and breath, then immediately sucking life back through my snorkel.

I lay there, floating, drifting on the current, waiting.

In the distance, the mountains call.

“Knock and it will be opened unto you…”

Replenished, I dive, driving my fins against the current until I glide along the bottom. The world around me is foreign yet intriguing. In the back of my mind, I keep watch for danger; sharks, rays and jellyfish that constantly appear and then disappear like spirits in the night. Adrenaline rushes through my veins, as my heart beats in my ears. There, over in the next bend lies the conch shell I’ve been searching. Just as my fingers grasp the treasure, the pains return. Too soon, the air is gone once again and I must return to the other place.

images0VGE58ZGA silence of beauty awaits me back on the surface. The bounty nestled safely in my dive pouch. Nearby a small tiger shark appears, approaching in a curious manner, then darts away. My hand reaches for the knife strapped to my thigh, more of a comfort than anything, the feeling of the cold hard steel is assuring. I try to relax again.

Drifting effortlessly once more, my breathing is measured but calm. Off in the distance, the sound of a boat motor tilling through waves reaches my ears. The alien noise does not belong. Like myself, we’re intruders in this realm, yet we’ve come nonetheless.

In the distance, the mountains call.

“For everyone who asks, receives…”

379274_4161269401680_615774015_nBelow, the clouds obscure the lower reaches of the valleys. From my vantage point, I can see snow capped peaks, jagged, unapproachable and daunting. The air is pure and clean up here. There is no want of breath, no self-depleting pangs of oxygen other than those that consume the body at altitudes beyond your own physical abilities. I look around and my eyes cannot believe the grandeur of this place. My time here is limited, like that below the surface of the Gulf, yet something draws me; a destiny I cannot explain.

The treasure is not below as I once believed; no, it is above.

Somewhere, a mountain calls, somewhere I must go.

“Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened.” – Matthew 7:7-8

 

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by | September 7, 2014 · 8:03 pm

A Shadow in the Mist

images281A76P4What I am about to tell you is totally true, beyond a shadow of a doubt and undeniably without any thread of exaggeration.

I was on the last leg of my Sunday morning run; the sun had just managed to reach the horizon while I had still yet to see its morning glow. The air was thick with humidity and any trace of coolness had long ago evaporated into the sweat that now poured off my tiring body. I turned the last corner of the gravel road, the last mile of my run and was about to head into the thickest part of the forest which made the road upon which I ran a living tunnel. Overhead trees draped across the lane, blotting out the sky above. The recesses of the darkness seemed to go on forever, the air cooler, whispered voices of beings therein. I was well within this domain when the thought of coyotes came to mind. Just as the thought entered a small dark figure of a squirrel raced across the road ahead of me, momentarily causing my heart to jump. I went back to the idea of the wolf-like creature and wondered how I might have reacted had the carnivorous being I had imagined actually passed before me. “Where they watching me even now,” I asked myself, my eyes searching as I ran the inner depths of the forest that lay to my left. The blur of vegetation passed as a movie as my body moved forward, one foot plodding before the other, the taste of salt on my lips. Not long afterward, I turned my focus forward again as I emerged from the wooded section of the road and came out into the growing brightness of the morning, running past the pond and up the last hill of my run, soon to put the images of primeval forest behind me.

After my brief cool down, I found myself on the back porch, looking out upon the pond and road from which I had just emerged. My glass of water in hand, I sat down upon the rocking chair and allowed my bare feet to breath in the cool morning air. I leaned back and closed my eyes, the air, my body becoming one with the world around me, drinking in the moment, blood pumping, my breathing relaxed, all was good.

The sounds of the earth serenaded my soul.wolfinmist

Then suddenly, from the depths of the darkness came the bark and howl of a lone coyote: its voice so close, so clear; so haunting.

My eyes flashed open and noticed the horses standing below where I sat on the porch, their images visible in the gray pasture shadows. Their actions confirming the sound I had just heard; their ears perked and alert as they turned to face the dark woods from which I had just passed moments earlier on my run.

Something from a repressed memory of an ancient time reached my consciousness, something unbelievably real, yet unbelieving in its existence.

“Had I known of their presence while through yonder dark woods I hath traveled,” came the voice in my head? “Surely it was just coincidence,” I replied, “or was it?”

I waited to see if there were another call but none came; only the sounds of predawn chorus continued.

My eyes scanned the lower horizon, watching for any signs of movement, but there was nothing.

The padded paw left no trace, its breath a mist upon the morning air and then vanished like the beast from whence it came; nothing left behind but the memory of its passing. A shadow in the mist.

Then I began to wonder to myself, “Was this the way we suppress so many other things in our world, things we recognize but then dismiss when they our outside the realm of our belief?” If nothing more than a physical image can be brushed aside, then what else is there that we understand as truth yet knowingly pass on its belief until we form the space in which we can comfortably exist, one we know and are familiar with, yet one that scares the hell out of us should we venture beyond its borders; the howl of the wolf, the connection to a world beyond our control, one where we are no longer the masters. The padded paw of silence follows us waiting for our minds to stray from the path, ready to pounce upon our unbelieving weaknesses and use them against us before we recover and scamper back to the safety of our predefined borders. How many without faith find themselves in this predicament everyday as they succumb to the evils of the world in which we live, finding themselves trapped in a darkness they cannot control or emerge; lost to the clutches of its demonic fanged breath.

Without the armor of light to protect us, the Word of God, we are mere babes in the woods. It is up to those of us who know better to prepare those who are without; salvation through God’s grace and thus become children of the light. Otherwise, we leave them to become prey to the claws of the world’s clutches.

How many only wish it were just a dream from which they could emerge, or a morning’s run through the early morning mist? How many can we reach before the fangs of this world pull them asunder?

What will you do to escape, what will you do?

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by | April 3, 2014 · 1:52 am

Premonition of Forelorn…

goldenshore

The beckoned flight, My soul doth seek,

Yet spirited wings, Are clipped beneath.

The journey’s path, Mere footsteps trod,

While Heaven’s gate, O’re yonder calls.

Each day we breathe, A breath once more,

And exhale our last, On God’s golden shore.

– T. Tron

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by | March 16, 2014 · 10:34 pm

Whirlwind of Life…

ElishaLast week, two consecutive days in a row I had dreams awake me only minutes after falling asleep. Both were similar but yet different; let me explain. The first day I dreamt that I was looking out from beneath the covers of the bed. The heavy blanket I had pulled over my head made it so there was barely a crack of light shining in my eyes which revealed objects lying next to the bed. There was a great roar and suddenly, I realized the objects were brooms and mops. I watched in suspended disbelief as the brooms and mops were, so quickly, so instantaneously pulled skyward that they broke in half as they flew away. I could feel myself being pulled by the same force while lying in the bed. It was at that moment that I awoke with a start, as if the breath had been sucked out of my lungs as I gasped for air when coming too.

I looked at my watch and I had only been asleep for ten minutes.

The next day, I had just lain down to sleep when I saw myself walking down a lane toward the pastures where my grandfather kept his dairy cattle. Overhead, the sky grew darker the farther I walked until it the day was nearly night. There came another great roar, like that of a mighty steam locomotive. As I looked ahead of me, I could see all manner of debris being sucked into the clouds above. The grasses swirled frantically as branches and rocks whirled about me. I once more felt myself being pulled heavenward and again, I awoke with a start, as if the breath of life had been sucked from my chest.

I looked at the clock and again, it had only been a few minutes since falling asleep.

Needless to say, after two days of this in a row, I was hesitant to go back to sleep on the third day for fear I might not awaken and finally be pulled into the heavens by the great whirlwind that seemed to be coming for me. I recalled the scripture of when Elijah was taken to heaven by God, so favored was he. I certainly don’t claim to be any sort of stature near or even slightly favoring Elijah, yet this scripture was firmly in my head as I carried on the rest of the week. My ponderings reminded me that anyone of us could be taken home at any time; our time is not our own for when the Lord calls us home, we must follow.

As the week wore on, the daily labors of working thirds took their toll on me, so demanding was the schedule and so heavy was the workload, that I soon nearly forgot about the dreams, until I saw the episode on a sports channel later on Saturday which was retelling the story of the 2008 SEC men’s 2008SECbasketball tournament in Atlanta. It was during that championship weekend that a tornado literally hit downtown Atlanta and the Georgia Dome where the tournament was being played. Miraculously, had a Georgia player not hit a three point shot at the buzzer of the regulation play, thus tying the game, the crowds would have departed just as the tornado hit downtown Atlanta. There was no telling the loss of life or injuries that might have taken place had the guard not hit the last second shot. Rather, due to the tie created by the buzzer-beater basket, there was a subsequent overtime, which kept the near capacity crowd in place and inside the safety of the dome. Afterward, as the documentary revealed, many people came to grips with the understanding of what could have been but was not; all due to a miracle.

To many, including myself, it was an act of God.

We go through our everyday lives, often losing sight of what’s most important, too caught up in keeping the proverbial “Wheels on the Road”, to understand the brief second, that once in a lifetime shot can change who and what we are and are to become, in as little as the blink of an eye. For this, we must give thanks to God for watching over us and when we do fall victim catastrophic events, we must find the will to carry on, for if we are survivors, there was a reason why.

Not everyone was meant to be taken to heaven in a whirlwind, but sometimes, we need to be reminded that it’s possible.

Are you ready for your final ride to Glory?

“Then it happened, as they continued on and talked, that suddenly a chariot of fire appeared with horses of fire, and separated the two of them; and Elijah went up by a whirlwind into heaven.” – 2 Kings 2:11

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