Ink Stained Fingers, 2019 || Albums

  I've enjoyed and benefited from several Heart-Math Institute studies. One in particular was about how physical, mental and emotional healings were experienced by people who were assigned tasks like writing thank you notes, giving thank you gifts, and of finding and telling the people who had been good to them, thank you for. . . It was as though the very words and actions of gratitude brought healing. There is a belief in more than one culture and religion that to inhale is to receive strength and to exhale is to speak gratitude. Without one, the other cannot exist. This song came out of those studies, as well as a study in the Bible about giving thanks even as I make my request.

E                 A
We looked around and life was good

E               A
So we breathed in all we could.

B7                               E
Afraid that someday God might suffocate us

A                B7
Holding all that we could keep

A                B7
Never letting go of ‘me’

                              E
Found ourselves expiring in a dead pool.

A                     B7
Exhale! Don’t forget to breathe

A         B7
Exhale! Gratitude brings peace

A                B7
Let it all flow through

     E                        A                       
You can’t take that stuff with you.

B7                       E
Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh. . .Exhale.

I guess we thought that there would be

Another day for us to breathe

A time when we would give out of our plenty

When we’d have breath enough to spare

To fill balloons with excess air...

Instead somehow we’re locked outside the party.

I learned to breathe out my lack

And found the space to receive back

And know the generosity of his peace

My darkened vision is now clear

A glorious future has appeared

And oh, the wonder of the breath God gave me!