{"id":22504,"date":"2023-06-14T08:03:18","date_gmt":"2023-06-14T12:03:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/?p=22504"},"modified":"2023-06-14T08:17:26","modified_gmt":"2023-06-14T12:17:26","slug":"22504","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/?p=22504","title":{"rendered":""},"content":{"rendered":"\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-rich is-provider-embed-handler wp-block-embed-embed-handler wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Goodness Of God (Lyrics) ~ Bethel Music\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/-f4MUUMWMV4?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Sustained Breath by Breath<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p><em>CAC teacher James Finley shares how he experienced \u201cthe oneness of presence that alone is ultimately real\u201d when he was a monk at the Abbey of Gethsemane:&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>One day as I walked back and forth in the loft of the barn reading the Psalms, I began to realize that <strong>what we tend to think of as the air is actually God.<\/strong> In a subtle, interior way I sensed that I was walking back and forth in the atmospheric, all-encompassing presence of God, who was sustaining me breath by breath\u2026.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The most intimate depth of this awakening moment was a simple awareness that God, who was sustaining my life breath by breath, knew me through and through as mercy within mercy within mercy. I was so overtaken by the intimate depths of my very presence being accessed by the presence of God in this way that I stopped reading the Psalms and simply sat on a bale of straw breathing God as I looked out over the meadow\u2026.&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>What was even more amazing is that this <strong>graced awareness of God and I inhaling and exhaling ourselves into each other<\/strong> continued for the next three days. It\u2019s not that I walked around in some kind of trance. Quite the opposite, actually, in that I felt very present to each thing that I did throughout the day, but present in a pervasive underlying awareness of being in the presence of God, sustaining me breath by breath, knowing me through and through with an infused sense of mercy without end.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The third day of my God-breathing way of life fell on a Sunday\u2026. As I walked along [a] narrow dirt path with its overarching canopy of trees, I paused and touched a leaf hanging from a low-lying branch. As I touched the leaf, I looked up and saw a single cloud hanging in the clear blue sky and whispered, \u201cIt\u2019s one!\u201d The infinite presence of God I was breathing, the cloud in the sky, the leaf I was touching, the earth on which I was standing, and the immediacy of feeling myself blessed and awakened to this all-encompassing presence were, in that instant, realized to be inexplicably and all-pervasively one. Please know that the words I am using in attempting to describe this intimately realized oneness are impoverished in a superficial, wordy kind of way compared to the transcendent oneness beyond words that I was so graced and privileged to experience.&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Moved by the all-encompassing presence in which I was immersed, I walked off the path onto a field, where I sat in the tall grass moved by a strong wind with the blue sky overhead, all of which were experienced as bodying forth the endless diversity of the oneness of presence that alone is ultimately real.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">[40] Dangerous Moment<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p> Am I going to do a good deed? Then, of all times\u2014Father into thy hands: lest the enemy should have me now.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Lewis, C. S.. George MacDonald (pp. 22-23). HarperCollins. Kindle Edition.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Sustained Breath by Breath CAC teacher James Finley shares how he experienced \u201cthe oneness of presence that alone is ultimately real\u201d when he was a monk at the Abbey of Gethsemane:&nbsp;&nbsp; One day as I walked back and forth in the loft of the barn reading the Psalms, I began to realize that what we [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22504"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=22504"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22504\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22510,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22504\/revisions\/22510"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=22504"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=22504"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=22504"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}