Prayer & Life

I had a professor wax eloquent one day and say, "To pray is to breathe."  A similar sentiment is found in this chapter.  I have found that praying is more like breathing pure oxygen.  I have only known that experience a few times, but it was so different than my normal experience of breathing and somehow exhilirating.  I pray often, but I am seldom lifted up into the Holy Place.  At times, it actually seems to take my breath away. 

Actually, prayer seems like the first breath of a newborn babe.  Necessary, burning, strange, lifegiving, profoundly unfamiliar experience; yet after a while soothing, empowering, and absolutely necessary.  Perhaps as we peak through the vale of the eternal we are getting our first breaths of air from the other side.  Maybe our connection to Somewhere Beyond Here brings strangeness, disorientation, and even fear.  Could it be that we don't pray because we are too familiar with here and afraid of there.

When my son, Caleb, was born, he turned a nice shade of purple before he really started breathing oxygen.  We remember this quite well because his dad, me, had the video camera running while Paula was having the C-section.  (Should I mention that was against hospital policy?  I was being honest when I told the doctor the camera wasn't on: "it was just flashing."  Oops, my bad!)  Going from one world to the next certainly can be traumatic.  Why am I at times willing to turn purple before I inhaling the air of the other side?  I'm not sure I have a good answer for that.  By the way, I don't think Caleb had a good answer either.

Breathe deep!