prayer Archives - Laurie Klein, Scribe

Sigh, Sigh, Sigh (& Stay Alive!)

Sigh … audibly. Deeply. Frequently. (So says my fitness instructor)

Dreamer’s latest angiogram date looms. After 5 bypasses, why are we here again? Dismay feels substantive enough to mold—like river sludge between cupped palms.

Sigh. Empty the hands, lift them in trusting surrender.

An audible sigh re-inflates the vital, occasionally squashed alveoli within our lungs, keeping us alive.

So sigh some more.

A sigh alleviates stress. Research shows that 12 hourly sighs help us regroup, emotionally. Read more here.

Yes, bad news strikes, and fear makes us bristle, become thistle-y with those we love
Yes, sometimes even the air weighs on us, seemingly saturated with unshed tears
Yes, how easily we slide toward the sump of dread

Stalled out again,
going nowhere fast,
I remember “nowhere”
plus the addition
of one slender space
becomes “now here.”

Presence. One slender pause—a breath, a hum, a prayer—invites a sacred recalibration. The built-in reset for body and soul.

Inhale. Sigh aloud. Repeat.

“there is a changing of everything —
when breath becomes prayer.”*

Richard Rohr teaches a simple breath prayer. Using the name YAHWEH for God: inhale, audibly voicing the YAH; exhale, audibly voicing the WEH.

I also like Dr. Andrew’s Weil’s calming breath exercise:

Exhale as much air as possible with a big whoosh
Place tongue behind upper teeth, inhale for an easy count of 4
Hold breath for a count of 7
Exhale audibly for a count of 8

Do this four times. As it becomes easier, increase to eight repetitions, twice a day. Follow Dr. Weil in video clip, here.

I vary the 4-7-8 exercise by counting on my fingers, simultaneously humming or praying.

*Prayer, Ann Voskamp

Threshold Times—Yours, Mine—Crossing Safely

by Laurie Klein 24 Chiming In

A threshold awaits.

Once Dreamer’s quintuple bypass surgery is scheduled, we spend an anxious week teetering on this sobering, irreversible borderline.

“Open heart surgery,” a former O.R. nurse tells us, “is a death experience.”

To mend his heart, they will stop his heart.

I’m facing my biggest fear: losing my husband of almost 44 years. A line we never imagined has been drawn. Will we cross over safely?

“We dodder through our days as if they [are] our surest belongings,” John O’Donohue writes. “No day belongs to us. Each day is a gift.”

“A threshold,” O’Donohue continues, “is not an accidental line. It is an intense frontier . . . a dividing line between the past and the future.”

Crossing over, you’re changed.

As in: braving that new job. Surviving a church split. A move. Failure of projects, or friendships. Unwanted divorce.

Some thresholds are forced upon us. Some, we seek. Always, we choose.

I recently gave Dreamer this card, designed by Adrienne Hedger.

A threshold can be exciting, a gateway to a new destination. You lay plans, gather maps, pack yourself snacks.

A threshold can feel like a threat. Something must die, or be left behind.

“Courage and trust” help us cross over the “. . . shoreline of an unknown realm,” O’Donohue says.

To which I would add, the earnest prayers of others—like yourselves—which, pre-surgery, have helped us sleep at night, and reel in our dread, by day.

A threshold also acts as an invitation. A glimpse of fresh terrain: physical, emotional, intellectual, or spiritual.

As I write this, memory dredges up a watery scene from my youth:

“Your lake’s kinda small,” the popular, blue-eyed blond said.

Dismay rounded my pre-teen shoulders. I’d been hoping she’d stay the night.

My dad looked up from steering our boat. “Have you heard of shoreline stretcher?” he asked.

“Um . . . no-o-o-o,” she said. “How does it work?”

She had peaked his Gullibility Meter. Tongue-in-cheek, Dad described a coarse powder that homeowners sprinkled along the shore, at dusk.

“Wow! Can we take another boat ride tomorrow, Mr. B?”

Thus the Cool Girl decided to sleep over.

Next morning we went wading.

Not only was she a good sport about Dad’s practical joke, she became my good friend. A small threshold was crossed together, eased by laughter.

Now, post-surgery, our daily landscape looks different. There is pain. The walker. The siege of fatigue.

There’s also laughter. (see “Check Out Day”Caring Bridge.)

Having crossed our threshold safely, now as never before we know life is a gift. We are changed. Our shores have been stretched.

We want to live these days consciously, attuned to O’Donohue’s “undertow of possibility, always at work.”

Did I mention Dreamer is already planning our next trip?

“A life that continues to remain on the safe side of its own habits and repetitions, that never engages with the risk of its own possibility, remains an unlived life” (O’Donohue).

Are you facing a sea change? Friends, wherever you stand, however you proceed, may you cross over safely.

As for us, your ongoing prayers and presence, cards and donated meals, continue to guard, heal, and nourish our spirits. Providential. And practical.

Like a helmet. And a tiny shopping cart.

What threshold is presenting itself to you, or someone you love?

Candlemass, groundhogs, prayer

by Laurie Klein 26 Chiming In

Candlemass is a an ancient celebration I took to heart after my father died.

Candlemass, light in my darkness

Dad was struck down by an aneurism 22 years ago. I was told by phone he keeled over in his kitchen, and I thought of my childhood hideout, a willow tree toppled by lightning.

Clinical depression felled me. During those dark days, I read about Candlemass, an ancient ceremony still celebrated by Anglican, Catholic, and Orthodox believers.

The idea of speaking a blessing over candles, then lighting them ceremonially to honor Jesus, light of the world, sparked something in my pervasive gloom. A flicker of interest.

Wicks and wax

Sandalwood candles especially stirred my dulled sensibilities. I arranged them on a round tray and lit them, one by one. I don’t remember what I said, probably something like Please bless these, whatever that means, and show me the way out of this darkness.

I did not process with them down an aisle or around the house. I just needed a visual that spoke of hope.

Lifted gently from an enameled box, wooden matches kindled the flames. A quirky cast iron snuffer extinguished them.

I even consecrated my tools for the task, pronounced a made-up blessing on fire and iron.

Somehow, these seemingly simple acts—igniting and snuffing—fired an inner expectancy. Soothed my frayed nerves.

To light a candle by myself is one of my favorite prayers, writes David Steindl-Rast.

I am not talking about reading prayers by candlelight.

The very act of lighting the candle is prayer.

There is the sound of striking the match

the whiff of smoke after blowing it out
the way the flame flares up and then sinks
until a drop of melted wax gives it strength
to grow to its proper size
and to steady itself

All this and the darkness beyond my small circle of light is prayer.

I enter into it as one enters a room.

Candlemass, today

Since AD 496, Candlemass, or Candelaria, has traditionally been celebrated February 2nd. Midway between Winter Solstice and the Spring Equinox, blessing the candles occurs 40 days after Christmas. These blessed candles are then used in the 40-day cycle of Lent, leading up to Easter.

The ceremony derives from the gospel story of Simeon and Anna, both present when Mary and Joseph carried Jesus into the temple for the first time. Simeon’s ensuing prophecy declared Jesus “a light for revelation to the Gentiles.”

Got a match?

So here I go again, February 2nd. The groundhog looks for his shadow. People debate over more snow or imminent thaw. Others bless candles, light them in remembrance of those they love.

In remembrance of my dad, I light my all-day, fire-in-ice candle, given me by a lifelong friend. All day it will remind me of him as well as my heavenly Father.