Many thanks to my friend Joseph for the title of my blog. It's not that I can even carry a tune or sing very much. One day in conversation Joseph told me that sacred music was 'scored for breathing'.....places in the music where different voices paused for breath while others carried on. He said there were songs that were 'not scored for breathing' and so the singers could choose when to take a breath.
Joseph and I talked about our lives and how we sometimes needed to take a breath and knew it and sometimes we needed to and didnt know it. We talked about faith communities and how we needed others to be willing to keep on while we stopped for breath. We needed to learn where our breathing spaces were and be encouraged to listen to them. We didn't want to hear that others were offended by our choice of breathing spaces or their boasts of not needing them at all.
The startup of this blog comes about in a time in my life where I feel like I am doomed to be in that 'take a breath' state permanently. Recently diagnosed with a disease that requires I figure out my 'breath marks' or suffer the consequences has got me off kilter. It is one thing to know my breathing spaces and do something about it - it is another to feel like I have no choice about it at all. I am hoping that by writing on here on a regular basis I will find my place in a life that has changed directions. Part of me knows it could be a good place to be but there is the other part that just wants to kick and scream and say 'screw the breathing spaces.'
3 comments:
hey hope! welcome to the blogosphere! i'm sorry about your diagnosis. breathing for me (not in the time sense) is sometimes an effort, so this resonated with me. i hold my breathe, or forget to breathe sometimes, it's weird.
can't wait to read more!
It's six years later. Wow. I'm not entering the draw but I did want to acknowledge you, your writing, your dreams and struggles and and say thank you. We remember the day you visited are grateful for that window of time. God bless you Hope, from MB as well.
Pointing to Christ as our necessity:
"...Man is incapable of contributing to his salvation... And the still more devastating affirmation that the higher reaches of the Christian ethic defy achievement; the counsels of perfection are binding upon all and attainable by none, because God commands the impossible. Furthermore the ideal is recessive. Every attainment raises the level of demand. The Christian life is a song not scored for breathing."
-Roland H. Bainton
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