Ten Meditations for Catching and Losing One’s Breath

The deepest words are the most prosaic. They are enriched by everybody’s voice, and only through them are our joys, sufferings, doubts, and choices illuminated and shared. This book’s brief meditations lend an ear to ten of them, from breath to wound, from way to abandonment, from attention to peace. The lesson of poets, the wisdom of saints, and the teaching of philosophers with these simple words afford innumerable pathways. To gather ourselves, letting the weight of these essential words sink into us, is to catch our breath silently, rendering its rhythm fuller and stronger. Yet what is the point, if we were to stand pat? The price of the highest breath can only be to give itself without reserve, until we lose our breath.
A contribution to the venerable tradition of lectio divina, Ten Meditations for Catching and Losing One’s Breath invites its reader to embark on a contemplative journey led by an author who was one of France’s most prolific and profound philosophers in generations.

Jean-Louis Chretien was a French poet and philosopher. The author of thirty books, his philosophical work in 2012 was the recipient of the inaugural Prix du Cardinal Lustiger from the Academie Francaise. He was emeritus professor of philosophy at Sorbonne University at the time of his death in 2019.

Steven DeLay is an Old Member of Christ Church, University of Oxford. He is the author of philosophical works and works of fiction, including Elijah Newman Died Today (2022) and Faint Not (2022).