Word for today: lungs Is it possible to bruise your lungs by breathing too hard? If it is, then yesterday I made mine black and blue. The body ( or rather my body) seems sometimes like an uncoordinated bunch of parts that sometimes- when they are getting along- work together. So as I started up the first hill on the course I began to suck in copious amounts of air in an effort to make it up the hill. I’m not sure if I remember the last time I sucked wind that hard. I remember feeling at one point that my body’s need for oxygen and my lungs ability to gather enough were working against each other. It was like a classic Star Trek moment: “Scotty! We need all thrusters full speed ahead!” said my brain and legs. “ But I’m giving it all I got!” cried my lungs. Somehow I made it up the incline, but it took me a significant amount of the course to breathe normally again. I do not know how quickly lungs can expand their capacity, but I think I may have blown mine out in the effort yesterday. The first thing we do when we arrive from the womb is take a gasp of air. Breath is life. If I pay attention right now, I can sense that I am breathing, but 99.9 percent of the time I’m oblivious to this automatic way my body takes care of my need for oxygen. If I try to hold my breath I cannot do it for more than a minute, if even that time. To live is to breathe. The last thing we do before we depart this earth is let out a last breath. We inhale life upon arrival, exhale it at the door on the way out. There is no way to exist here without lungs that keep us alive. Yet in so many ways they are the most disrespected of vital organs. Cigarettes pollute the lungs of those I love and there is nothing I seem to be able to do about that except pray that one day my husband will give them up for good. Air pollution can bring entire cities to the realization that if the people who live there cannot breathe, something has to change. Why is it that we wait until things get bad before we see the need for positive action? I guess we all live in some state of denial about something. For me it’s a denial of the reality that my body as it ages will not just take care of itself at random anymore. For others it’s apparently the mounting evidence that the ecosystem of the world cannot always and forever fix what we do to harm it. There are finite amounts of self healing organisms can do for themselves. After that they look for divine intervention to save them. The rainforest has become known as the lungs of the earth. They are a brilliant design, a place where trees both breathe in the things that would kill humans in large quantities, but where they breathe out transformational oxygen that we do desperately need to live. Yet every day deforestation is happening to these fragile ecosystems. It’s not just the trees that are being eliminated, it’s creatures that could help us and heal us that we may not even have discovered yet. If we do not stand up for the things that stand up for us, I’m not sure how we think this whole thing plays out long term. Will we begin manufacturing all oxygen to keep us alive when the free stuff is gone? Forget the Freddie Kruger movies, if you want to make a whole new genre of horror flick, make the ones that show how life changed when you monetize and industrialize the things God has given us for free in order that we may live abundantly. Some of that unfortunate horror story has already come to pass. A couple of years ago a friend’s mother had a double lung transplant. Such a delicate balance is needed to keep the transplanted lungs working in the new body. Her struggle to breathe every day was a good reminder to me that not only should I try to make my lungs as strong as possible for my own benefit, but as an organ donor I should remind myself every single day that I am keeping these lungs healthy for someone else too one day, someone who will be able to use them when my soul has left my body. I hope I can get them in shape before that time arrives, but I have work to do. While they could use my eyes, and perhaps my kidneys, of all of the possible organs I think they could use that could save the life of another, my lungs are probably my best prospect. I’ve never been a smoker. They work well, although a little on the shallow side at the moment. I would be so happy to think that someone else found them in near pristine shape. It’s something to keep in mind as I fight my way back to good health. I’m not just doing it for me, or the people who love me. I can do it for someone I’ll never know, who will be able to receive the gift of breath when I no longer need these lungs. “Breathe on me breath of God Fill me with life anew, That I may love what Thou dost love, And do what Thou wouldst do.”
Posted on: Sun, 01 Sep 2013 12:04:28 +0000