The Air in There

How much is air worth? I ran a church in downtown Auckland, New Zealand, that discovered an answer to this question. Local law allowed one building to sell its air space to another building that wanted to grow upwards. (Transferable Development Rights) This was curious enough, but it got even curiouser when we started to value the air. Air became low hanging fruit for over eager city terrace owners and churches with heritage restrictions. The more people who tried to sell their air, the less it was worth. As soon as air became a commodity, its value decreased. By the time we sold some of our last parcels of air, it was worth virtually nothing.

The truth is that air is priceless. How do you put a price on the source of life? The average person inhales 3,000 gallons of air each day. The air you breathe is a major factor in your wellbeing. The second leading cause of death for children under the age of four is air pollution. According to recent studies, breathing issues such as asthma increase the risk of suicide and the suicide rate in the general population increases when air pollution worsens.

On the positive side, air and breath have healing qualities. Studies of people suffering from painful conditions such as Fibromyalgia show that slow breathing reduces pain as well as lessening anxiety and nervous tension. Slow and deep breathing increases the capacity to feel emotions other than pain; it reduces the fight/flight response, and allows us to move from powerlessness to proactive choices.

Air is life force and breathing is a deeply spiritual act. Your breath is your source of life, and it also connects you to the Source of all life. Most ancient cultures use the same word for air, breath, life and spirit. The creation story in Genesis says that the world was created with words, and the essence of words is breath. Genesis says that "God took the dust of the earth and formed the human body, and breathed into human nostrils the Breath of Life, and humans became living souls."

The Hebrew word for air is “ruach.” It a breathy word, and sounds like what it is. The word ruach means breath, as in what we inhale and exhale, but it is also the atmosphere. It's the source or breath of life, and it's the quality of life. The ancient Greek word for spirit or breath is “pneuma”, as in pneumatic, and it expresses spirit, the breath of God. The German word “Atman” describes the life giving Source within breath. The energy of life within breath is also called chi or prana.

People who have spent time in meditation and other breathing exercises (from all traditions and no particular tradition) report that breathing is both ordinary and also miraculous. As the Sufi Master Hazrat Inayat Kahn writes: "The healing power of Christ, the miraculous power of Moses, the charm of Krishna, and the inspiration of the Buddha--all these were attained by breath."

With your breath, you connect to an energy that is infinite and inspirational. When you pay attention and notice that breath continues without your help, you learn to surrender to the grace of life. When you add mindfulness to this miracle, you participate in your own healing with the Source of life. I began a daily breathing practice a year ago, and now it doesn’t feel like my day has even begun without some breathing routines. The regular practice of conscious breathing reduces stress, and lowers blood pressure and cholesterol levels. It aides in the healing of emotional blocks, and any number of unconscious fears and anxieties. When every one of your body’s 75 trillion cells breathes slowly and harmoniously, you live with incredible wellbeing.

The original life force that sustained your body in the womb is still available to you. It wants to restore your body right now. All you need to do is give it permission to heal and begin breathing consciously.

Breath is a unifying force, both within and around you. The breath that is in you today was in another yesterday. You are breathing the same atoms and molecules that your ancestors breathed many centuries ago. Feel the flow of inspiration. Breath reminds you that you don’t have to seek peace, you just have to surrender to it. Your life has the ease and freedom of breath itself. Your breath is the gateway to your essence as a spiritual being who co-creates reality.

Breathe in and say, “The power of life is within me.” Breathe out and say, “The grace of life surrounds me.”

Repeat often, “I am filled with healing power.”

Soulseeds has created an amazing breathing resource. Our Mindful Breathing e-Packet is a series of inspirational affirmations that include breathing practices put together by a yoga instructor. They are practical and can be used by people with no experience and people with great experience. Check it out. Go down to E-Packets and select Mindful Breathing from the drop down menu.

Creationism, Evolution and Education

Both evolution and creationism should be taught in schools. There, I said it. It might be the most surprising thing you ever hear me say. Creationism and evolution should both be taught in schools, but they should be taught in different classes (and hopefully on different days to avoid confusion). They are an equally important part of education, but they are as different as carrots and apples (even forbidden apples).

Creationism is not an alternative theory to evolution. Creationism is to evolution as a flat-earth is to the heliocentric solar system. Creationism is to evolution as demons causing disease is to germ theory. Creationism is to evolution as the cabbage patch theory is to sexual reproduction. Teaching creationism in a science class is little different to teaching Spanish in a French class.

Creationism is mythology, and not a scientific theory. Evolution should be part of a science class. Creationism should be part of a history class. Genesis should be studied as an example of the way ancient people made sense of their world. Creationism should be taught as an example of the way cultures take myth, poetry and story and often turn them into literal truth. The science class should outline evolutionary theory as the universally accepted scientific theory of the origins of human life.

It’s important to still teach creationism (as myth) because so many westerners grow up with a form of 7 day creation at home and in Sunday school classes. Its part of western folklore. Young people need to come to terms with their cultural heritage.

Hopefully this way, we might avoid so much of the unnecessary tug-o-war between science and religion. It’s no wonder that so many kids grow up conflicted about science and religion. When creationism is taught as an alternative to evolution, it’s like a “gloves off” boxing match to the death. In one corner, evolution brings an assortment of fossils and ancient tools to the match. In the other corner, creationism has just one tool…. an ancient book, and a very limited interpretation of that book. When the Bible is used as a weapon, it hurts. Believe me. But ultimately, Bible bashing only reveals defensiveness and fear.

There need be no fear on either side, if evolution and creationism are taught in different classes. I celebrate both. I fear neither.

My sermon on Sunday celebrated Darwin’s birthday and looked at the relationship between science and religion. I was pleased to outline a number of ways that we can embrace both evolution and the God of our many understandings, without compromising our intellect or tradition.

Lincoln, Darwin and Unemployment

Unemployed at last! These are the famous opening words of Tom Collin’s classic Australian novel, “Such Is Life.”

Unemployed at last? It seems insensitive to say these words at a time when global unemployment is expected to hit 50 million in 2009. How could losing your job be such a moment of glee and relief? It’s like saying, “Ah, finally my bank account is empty, or at long last my hips are arthritic.”

I don’t expect its true for everyone, but I keep meeting people who announce their lay off with a sense of cautious optimism. I can understand joy at good news. The fact that January retail sales rose by 1% is cause for cautious optimism. But I don’t immediately understand the joy of being laid off.

I look to Darwin and Lincoln for the answer. They both share today as a birthday, and they share much else in common. They were both heretics in the truest sense of the word. They chose to follow their own intellect and wisdom even when it meant being unpopular. Like other fine heretics, Jesus and Einstein, St Francis and Galileo, they promoted the idea that all things are related.

This was a radical departure from the worldview that they (and many of us) inherited. We were taught that life is like a pre pay phone card. The beginning and ending is pre-determined. In this analogy the phone company is God. God made the world with an order that we are not to mess with, lest we breach our contract.

The truth of evolution is so liberating. Even death, especially death, is necessary for natural selection. Without huge amounts of death, nothing changes. Without huge change, nothing new can emerge.

And this doesn’t have to compromise religious beliefs in any way. If God is the source, evolution is the process. If God did it, Darwin described it. Or maybe to continue the phone analogy- Evolution is God’s way of doing upgrades.

While some find a manual for pre-pay creationism in Genesis, I see Genesis as free form brilliance. It is ancient poetry describing evolution before they had words or science to match. It is camp-fire story telling with the intention of praising an unseen order to which they felt intimately related. This unseen whole grounded them as it does us, no matter what name you call it. It gave them a moral compass, as it does us. It gave them a sense of wondrous kinship, as it does us.

I’m excited about Darwin’s birthday. I’m excited to be part of a community that embraces the best of science without fear. I hope to alleviate any anxiety about embracing evolutionary theory, and to show the spiritual liberation that evolution points to.

And now I get it. Unemployment, no matter how death-like it feels, is a natural selection for new possibilities and growth. Unemployed at last. Such is evolutionary hope.


NB I ran my thoughts by our resident physicist Howard Van Till (another fine heretic) to make sure I wasn’t committing any scientific blasphemy. He replied with a nice description of genetic variation and natural selection. He said I could include it here

Spontaneous genetic variation is the way that Earth's ecosystem explores new possibilities for life forms. No exploration = nothing new to look forward to. Thank "God" for genetic exploration.

Natural selection = go with whatever happens to work best at this time and place. That implies that the future will be interesting but admits that the details are yet to be worked out. This approach preserves the possibility of surprise. Thank "God" for surprise.


One last note- I LOVE this Darwin quote on attention.

“Attention, if sudden and close, graduates into surprise; and this into astonishment; and this into stupefied amazement.” Darwin Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals p. 278