Return: Expiration

The Tree of Life, New Orleans, LA

By Andrea Lingle

What is the purpose of breathing?
To enrich the blood with oxygen.
What is the purpose of breathing?
To release waste products from the blood.

What is the purpose of Pilgrimage?
To go and be renewed.
What is the purpose of Pilgrimage?
To return, renewed.

Returning from something as anticipated, planned and hoped for, and inspiring as Pilgrimage can be is bittersweet. These places of arrival are soaked with meaning, purpose, and joy, but the cycle of pilgrimage would not be complete without return. Breathing in forever is as asphyxiating as not breathing at all. The temptation to avoid return is strong, but to refuse to return would be to drown in the baptismal font. It is as much a refusal of the pilgrim way as to never begin. It is the hoarder’s response to the richness of Love. And the pilgrim way is not tight and grasping; it is curious. It is living by manna: one day, one step, one moment at a time all with persistent, nagging curiousness.

What is it?
What is it?
What is it?

There is an ache that belongs to Return, but it is more than essential. It is the very essence of Pilgrimage. To go is to go with the intention of returning. To inspire is to expect to expire. Just try it. Try to breathe in for more than fifteen seconds or the length of a red light or the span of time it takes to fill a water bottle. The rhythm of life becomes painful in stasis. The spiritual life is characterized by balance. It is both to love and to be loved, it is to give and receive, it is to go and return. Imbalance leads to death—whether it be oxygen poisoning or the Crusades, without balance, without being willing to enter the powerful, untamable tidal flow of grace, we cannot live. If the pilgrim were to refuse return, the pilgrimage would die.

What is the purpose of the Way?
To stay in the pathway of right action.
What is the purpose of the Way?
To avoid the pathway of harm.

What is the purpose of the Community of God?
To love.
What is the purpose of the Community of God?
To be loved.

The Practice:

For thought: 

• What are you avoiding?

• Where does your life need balance?

• What do you receive well?

For doing:

• Find your pulse

• Breath in for four beats of your heart

• Hold your breath for four beats

• Breathe out for four beats

• Hold your breath for four beats

• Repeat for 3-5 minutes

For reflection:

• As you balance your breath, what do you feel in your body? Your mind?