If someone says this to you, they mean, “Don’t bother speaking, it’s futile!” However, there is much to inhale about our breath.
Do you ever have to remember to breathe? Never. Those who attended you at your birth, after turning you upside down and spanking your bottom, knew they had started a function that would last a lifetime. Later maybe, a parent would slip in at night to check for sure you were breathing, but the marvelous rhythm of the respiratory system had begun. So, you probably never think of the 17,000 breaths you’ll take today!
Respiratory system? Yes, think mostly “lungs”. But think also of what it takes to get the vital oxygen to all the parts of your body. Air/oxygen first goes through the sinuses, the cavity that regulates its temperature and humidity. Then it sails down the filtering windpipe to the bronchial tubes- which are hairy, move back and forth, carrying mucus up and out. Mucus, sticky stuff, collects dust, germs, unwanted stuff, which we expel when we cough, sneeze or swallow (like a quart a day!).
Air/oxygen then arrives in the three lobes of the right lung and the two lobes of the left lung (the heart insists on room to beat!). The small, spongy sacs of the lobes then bring about a marvelously (magical?) real exchange of oxygen for carbon dioxide. You breathe out, you are free of the poison.
Then, somehow, the red blood cells collect the oxygen and wondrously carry it to every part of the body- so you can live, move, and remain conscious. (Four minutes without oxygen and brain cells begin to die!)
The Creator’s “imagination” has provided. Three-fifths of the oxygen in our atmosphere is created by tiny organisms in the ocean, the rest by the living vegetation that clings to the Earth around us.
As adults, at rest we breathe about 12 to 16 breaths per minute. Exertion demands more. Night and Day. Every day. Quite a big deal you rarely cogitate about!
Except! Except! Such a constantly necessary, ultimately all-sustaining, intricately formed system is vulnerable! From within, from without.
So, what? A reverence for the Creator and the reality of God’s “wondrous works” abiding in and around us is deeply needed! An awareness of all that brings health to all of us is richly needed! A vividness of all that threatens our wellness today is sorely needed!
Save Your Breath!! It just can’t be futile!
~Earl Laman, Health Ministry member