Spiritual Care Sunday #7
a piece of art and a beautiful reflection on the breath we take....
💙
‘I AM” is the
English translation of the Hebrew letters YWHW (or YHVH), which is called the
Tetragrammaton, the sacred name of God. In Hebrew, the original language in
which this passage was written, the four letters YHWH are pronounced Yod,
Hay, Vav, Hay. Growing up, I’d learned that this holy word was written
as such because it was unspeakable. But the writings of some rabbis, in
particular, Rabbi Arthur Waskow, provided clarity. Rabbi Waskow suggests that
while it is true that YHWH is unpronounceable, it is not because we are
forbidden to pronounce it, but rather that in order to pronounce these letters,
part vowel, part consonant, labeled by linguists as aspirate consonants-
without any vowels between them, one has to do so simply by breathing. Try it
for yourself: say each letter and its corresponding sound, without adding any
vowels, and you find yourself making some breaths that sound a lot like
exhales.
The Jewish
prayer book, The Siddur, says of this embodied spirituality, “Every breath
praises the breath of life.” Rabbi Waskow says it is the breathing of all life
that is the name of God. He goes on to say that this invites
us to see God in all breathing beings--- there is no language, no culture, no
“those people” or “that person” who does not breathe. What we breathe in is air
that is mixed with the breath of all others- or what Waskow calls
“interbreathing.” What we put into the world with our bodies is taken up by
other bodies and living beings. He suggests that our interconnectedness to all
living things through breath, the way we breathe life into one another, is somehow
the sound of the name of God.
-Hillary
McBride The Wisdom of the Body
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