Keep Breathing--February 25, 2021

Keep Breathing--February 25, 2021

"Devote yourselves to prayer, keeping alert in it with thanksgiving." [Colossians 4:2]

This verse makes me think of cartoon fish.

One particular cartoon fish, as a matter of fact--it's Dory, from Pixar's Finding Nemo.  Dory is the often absent-minded blue tang, voiced by Ellen DeGeneres in the movie, whose repeated motto is simply this: "Just keep swimming."  Whatever happens, you just keep swimming.

For a lot of fish, in fact, swimming is life--literally.  Sharks, for example, have to keep moving all the time even when sleeping, in order to keep moving water through their gills so they can breathe.  Swimming isn't just about transportation--it is the means for life itself.  So whether they are animated talking characters or real-life creatures, fish are born swimming from the moment they hatch, and they just keep swimming through whatever else comes their way.

It's that idea of "keeping on" that seems important to focus on for today.  Our verse for today is translated in the NRSV as "Devote yourself to prayer," but the verb in the original Greek is more literally something like, "Keep holding on in prayer," or "Continue in prayer," or "Be ye persevering," if you like the King James style language.  But the idea is the continuity--this verse assumes we are praying, and so tells us to "just keep swimming" with it.  It's not about starting a new habit, or finding time in our already busy schedules to add one more new thing.  It's about continuing in something we are already doing.  And that makes this verse, not so much a scolding finger reminding us to do our spiritual homework, but a word of encouragement telling us we're doing good so far and to keep at it.  

I don't know about you, but that makes a world of difference to my ears.  These days it seems we are all being asked to take on more--just one more task, one more role, one more commitment--and to do it with utter devotion, while we are still supposed to keep doing everything else with the same 110% attitude as well.  And that just gets wearying.  But in this verse, we aren't being told to add one more thing, but rather to keep doing the thing that is already as essential as breathing.  Keep on praying, Colossians says, like Dory the fish saying, "Just keep swimming," or like you might say to a child getting overwhelmed with anxiety, "Just keep breathing."

Keep on praying.  Bring whatever is on your mind, your heart, your to-do list.  Not as one more item on the endless "to-do" list, but as the perpetual rhythm of give and take, inhaling and exhaling, breathing in and breathing out.  It's not about getting the words right or looking religious.  It's about staying in constant contact with the One whose presence brings us to life, who fills and animates us like oxygen in our lungs.  

Keep on breathing, dear ones.  That is, keep on praying--through everything.

O Lord, we come to you--or rather, we say we are coming to you as if you weren't already immediately as present to us as the air--seeking for you to sustain us.  Keep on filling us with your presence, bearing our hurts and worries, and animating our hearts to live and serve fully.