The past week has been an intense one, spiritually speaking, involving lots of soul-searching, lots of praying, lots of reading the Psalms and praying them back to God with the same sort of desperation that bleeds so evidently throughout the entire book and reveals how those words come out of the everyday stuff of life in a mysteriously inspired sort of way. I am staring down a fork in the road these days. I weigh the pros and cons, I consider the what ifs, and I do it all over again and again, one day after another. I turn to His word, I pray, and I turn to those I trust especially now because life these days, rather than feeling like a great exhilarating adventure, begins to feel a lot more like a royal pain in the neck.

So it is in these days when songs I have known for a long time begin to come alive, because in the case of good music, songs are written from the heart and out of desperation and not just because they make for good songs.

For more than a yeear now, my favorite song has been “Breathing Air Again” by the Robbie Seay Band. Never before has a song continued to rattle around in my heart and head quite the way this one has, but it has just now taken on new meaning.

“Take the time to start anew, maybe it’s in front of you. Take the time to walk down the street, heaven knows who you might meet. Take the time to be OK, laugh a bit along the way… And we could breathe again. Step outside our front door and gaze upon the stars and know we’re not alone. So run into the field and scream louder than you can. It’s good to be alive and breathing air again… Take the time to stop and stare, heaven’s beauty everywhere. Take the time to think about someone else besides yourself. Take the time to be OK, laugh a bit along the way…”

Another RSB song contains these lyrics: “Wherever you are, breathe out and breathe again, and know that life is hard but it’s worth the breathing.” And I guess this odd theme of breathing really resonates with me for whatever reason. Switchfoot, before Mandy Moore discovered them and all the teenie-boppers started singing along, had a song where they sang, to God: “I’m learning to breathe. I’m learning to crawl. I’m finding that You and You alone can break my fall. I’m living again, awake and alive. I’m dying to breathe in these abundant skies.”

And these songs about breathing - the most basic thing human beings can do - are great reminders to me about the goodness of God and how, though you may be in Lancaster where the air is turning crisp and cool, and I may be in Cambodia where the air is still hot and muggy, none of us need to be choking or gasping for air. There is plenty of air for all of us, and though we are breathing air on opposite sides of the world right now, you and I, we are both breathing from the same abundant skies, and this is a gift from God. And let me tell you, it is good to be alive and breathing air again.

So breathe, take a step. Breathe again, another step. Repeat.

“Delight yourself in the LORD
and he will give you the desires of your heart.”
- Psalms 37:4