From an early age, I revered all things old and historic: the tobacco pipe chief among them. Cigarette smoke always bothered me, but the smell of a lit pipe made me feel intimately connected to the simplicity of the past. Inspired by the wisdom pipe smoking offered, I finally adopted the practice in college.

Pipe smoking serves a monastic mission in my life, one shaped by the human capacity for intellectual work and prayerful leisure. Unlike some cigarette users, I don’t smoke a pipe to get a quick nicotine buzz. I smoke a pipe on special occasions, at the end of a hard day’s work, on a walk in the woods, or during fruitful conversations with friends and family.

Smoking a pipe requires patience and practice. Overtime, pipe smokers develop their own method of packing and smoking a bowl of tobacco. Rather than inhale, many pipe smokers try to sip the smoke as they would an expensive glass of wine. They draw the smoke into their mouths, discerning its flavor before blowing it out the other side.

This ebb and flow establishes the smoker’s rhythm, without which the ember-filled bowl would extinguish. The heart of the pipe – its enflamed center – is controlled by the rhythm of breath.

“It is the very nature of time to be rhythmic; it is the rhythm that keeps us present,” said clergyman and scholar Eugene Peterson. “Creation is called into being, not haphazardly and not in a cacophony of noise but rhythmically; as we listen and observe we find ourselves integrated into the rhythms.” By rhythmically sipping and puffing, pipe smokers can participate in the rhythm of God’s breath which formed humanity from the ashes and which gives new life through the Spirit.

“Let my prayer like incense rise before you.” – Psalm 141:2

In “Christian Pipe Smoking,” authors Uri Brito and Joffre Swait argue that “the image of the pipe smoker reflects the rational part of the soul.” For generations, the pipe has been used as a vessel for contemplation.

Many pipe smokers strive to emulate the qualities of those who smoked before them; the artistry of Bach and Beethoven; the imagination of writers like Mark Twain and J. R. R. Tolkien; the courage of St. Titus Brandsma; the juridical mind of Antonin Scalia; the philosophical musings of Jean-Paul Sartre; the selfless love of St. Damien of Molokai; and the cosmic consciousness of Albert Einstein.

Of course, pipe smoking would be nothing if not for the distinctive aroma of the smoke. Pipe smoke, while delightful to smell and taste, can also be a source of deep reflection of our own mortality. The cloud of smoke disappears almost as quickly as it is created, but something of its scent – its essence – still hangs in the air.

The pipe accomplishes something humans often cannot; it reconciles our momentary, and at times insignificant, life with our yearning for the eternal and the divine. In the words of Puritan poet Ralph Erskine, “The smoke, like burning incense tow’rs/ So should a praying heart of yours/ With ardent cries/ Surmount the skies/ Thus think, and smoke tobacco.”