My frustratingly tender heart / is not a problem to solve

🙏🏼 16 New Breath Prayers for you

Hi friends,

This week, I wanted to share a few of the breath prayers that I’ve been writing and praying in my own life lately.

(If you’ve been around here for a bit, you’re well familiar with the practice of breath prayer as I often write these for us. But if the concept feels new-ish to you, I’ll point you towards this previous edition of Field Notes where I explain the practice a bit more and walk you through how to begin. And of course, you can always find even more breath prayers in A Rhythm of Prayer as well within the Guided Journal companion to Field Notes for the Wilderness.)

I usually write breath prayers out of my own life or longings of the moment. So your own prayer needs may be quite different right now, but please see this starting point as an invitation to write your own breath prayers. These types of prayers can be inspired by your own learning, evolution, encounters, and needs. Look to the books or music or scriptures that are speaking to you these days as a starting point, perhaps. I often write breath prayers down while I’m reading, for instance.

The ones I’ve got for you today centre around themes of peacemaking, change or evolution, and even the pursuit of simplicity or quieter things. I’ll have more to say on those topics in the coming months, I imagine, but for now, I hope this creates a bit of room for your own soul to breathe, too.

16 New Breath Prayers

Each couplet is its own stand-alone prayer.

Inhale: My frustratingly tender heart 
Exhale: is not a problem to solve.

Inhale: I will not settle for easy despair,
Exhale: I choose hope and faith on purpose.