When we begin with the breath,
The breath helps us anchor into the present moment and keeps us grounded.
Notice your breath,
The inhale and the exhale,
And invite it to slow down.
Let's see if we can even out the breath by counting how long it takes you to inhale.
Maybe a count of four,
Six.
And then exhale,
See if you can make it the same.
Then whatever the count is,
See if you can hold at the top of the inhale just the same amount of time.
And then exhale,
Hold at the bottom.
So it might look like a inhale for a count of four,
Hold for a count of four.
Exhale for a count of four and hold.
And then spend a few moments.
So paying attention to the breath helps us begin to pay attention to the words that we're just about to hear.
We begin to notice the subtleties that awaken if we just remain still.
So now let's listen to the words of St.
Augustine.
He tells us to engage in our imagination.
So as we let go of the counting of the breath,
See if you can walk with me and St.
Augustine and enter into joy.
Imagine if all the tumult of the body were to quiet down along with all our busy thoughts about earth,
Sea and air.
If the very world should stop and the mind cease thinking about itself,
Go beyond itself and be quite still.
Imagine all the fantasies that appear in dreams and imagination should cease and there be no speech,
No sign.
Imagine if all things that are perishable grew still.
For if we listen,
They are saying,
We did not make ourselves.
He made us who abides forever.
Imagine then that they should say this and fall silent,
Listening to the very voice of him who made them and not to that of his creation.
So that we should hear not his word through the tongues of men or the voice of angels or the clouds thunder nor any symbol,
But the very self which in these things we love and go beyond ourselves to attain a flash of that eternal wisdom which abides above all things.
And imagine if that moment were to go on and on,
Leaving behind all other sights and sounds,
But this one vision which ravishes and absorbs and fixes the beholder in joy so that the rest of eternal life were like that moment of illumination which leaves us breathless.
Just imagine.
Itates in MerryJ� you you you you you you you
