Breathe

Something I learned today in class:

Psalm 150, the final psalm in the psalter, is all about praising God. This should be obvious to anyone who looks at this psalm - it says the word praise 13 times in 6 verses. It is also psalm that is read every morning by monks and nuns. They gather at daybreak and open their day lines of praise from this psalm. In class today Dr. Craven, my professor, asked us what it means, according to this psalm, to praise God.

If you've never thought of that before, think about it. What does it mean to praise God? Google Psalm 150 if you want.

Dr. Craven gave us time to think too. Then she told us to look at the final verse, verse 6, which says: "Let everything that breathes praise the Lord! Praise the Lord!"

According to this psalm, to breathe is to praise God. You can be at the lowest point in your life, but you can still praise God if you can still breathe. Our days are spent in praise to God.

Another interesting factoid: in ancient Hebrew (and current Judaism), the name of God was unpronouncable. Maybe you know this. The name was never written out with vowels, but was only indicated by four consonants: YHWH. Many people think this could be pronounced Yahweh, but no one can be sure.

There is another way to interpret God's name. The four consonants can also be understood as breathing sounds - inhale, exhale, inhale, exhale. Dr. Craven related that the name of God can be understood as the sound of breathing.

What if we lived as if this is true? What if with each breath we take, we say the name of God, we praise God? What if, like monks and nuns who begin each day with Psalm 150, we start our day with the knowledge that we each breath we exhale, we praise God?