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Running on Faith: Breathe

Breathe

With the New Haven Half Marathon coming up on Labor Day and the 2021 Boston Marathon just around the corner, I incorporated a few 400-meter intervals into my run Wednesday morning, which also happened to be the first day of classes of the 2021-2022 academic year.

It was a nice thought when I took the first few steps out the Residence’s door on that humid, rainy morning, but by the time I got to the Albertus Magnus track, about six miles in, I was feeling pretty flat, despite a relatively consistent summer of running. I felt rickety, under-prepared and like the tank was empty. I got through the 400s – and they weren’t pretty – (but then again as a long-distance runner, short sprints have never been a pretty thing for me). While heading back to STM, past Yale Divinity School and down Science Hill, I suddenly got a cramp in my side. It rarely happens to me, but when it does—it comes with a vengeance. That’s when it feels like everything is falling apart: my stride loses rhythm, it’s tough to breath and the seconds of ugly discomfort lengthen without an end in sight. Even with just a mile or so left the temptation to quit comes to mind.

This sounds like it lasted forever, but it didn’t. Instead of quitting, I breathed.

I learned early on that the best thing you can do when dealing with a bad running cramp is to breathe. Don’t stop – just breathe – even while in stride. It’s like a yoga move: you breathe deeply and you send breath exactly to that place that’s hurting. Sure enough, after a few deep breaths sent straight to my side, the cramp was gone and I was back in stride.        

When the stride gets difficult and the breathing gets short, a runner sometimes needs to remind themselves to do the thing that ought to come most naturally. For me in that moment, it was reminding myself to just breathe. As I got it together for the last mile back to STM, I reflected on the words from Professor Braxton Shelley at this week’s Yale Divinity School Convocation. Reflecting on the vision from Ezekiel 37, when through the prophet God breathed new life into an army of dry bones, Shelley reminded us that if we are going to come into our vocation as members of a prophetic community, then we must be prepared to encounter ugliness, endure the uncertainty and embrace the unfinished. In his closing exhortation, Shelley urged us to BREATHE:

“The miracle is in the breath.

Breathing is always a miracle – from the baby’s first breath to their parents last breath.

Breathing is always miraculous – a complex process that works to stabilize.

Breathing is inherently ecological – a reminder that we can’t survive on our own.

BREATHE.

If you’re worried about what these next weeks or months might hold, BREATHE.

If you’re confused about the many detours that dot the path to your destination, BREATHE.

If you feel that you’re starting a new year on an empty tank, BREATHE.

Breathe in cooperation – breathe out competition.

Breathe in confidence – breathe out imposter syndrome.

Breathe in humility – and breathe out haughtiness.

Breathe in curiosity – and breathe out conceit.

Breathe in fortitude – and breathe out fragility.

Breathe in imagination – and breathe out fragility.

Breathe in imagination – and breathe out disinterest.

Breathe in introspection – and breathe out projection.

Just Breathe. Breathe.”

And that is what we need to do at the start of this school year: Breathe. And in that simple, natural act, the Spirit will come to us: touching the hurting, ugly places and giving us the strength to take everything in stride while we keep running on faith. 

 

Braxton Shelley holds appointments in the Institute of Sacred Music and the Music Department of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences in addition to YDS and will serve as faculty director of a new interdisciplinary Program in Music and the Black Church. Professor Shelley joins the YDS community from Harvard, where he was Assistant Professor of Music. Shelley has amassed a range and quantity of awards that belie his young age; among them, the 2016 Paul A. Pisk Prize from the American Musicological Society, the 2016 Graduate Student Prize from the Society for Christian Scholarship in Music, and the 2018 Dean’s Distinguished Dissertation Award from the University of Chicago Division of the Humanities.

Professor Shelley’s complete address can be found on Yale Divinity School's Livestream page. The proclamation of the Ezekiel text, followed by Professor Shelley’s address, begins at about twenty-one minutes into the feed. 

Fr. Ryan Lerner, Chaplain

Fr. Ryan Lerner, Chaplain

Fr. Ryan Lerner is Yale's 8th Catholic Chaplain.