When we are born we inhale our first breath. When we die we exhale our last breath. In between we are called to notice the holy gift of breathing.
Why holy? In Hebrew the word for breath is “ruach,” and it can mean breath, wind and spirit. In the beginning of creation the ruach of God moved over the waters. (Genesis 1) A wind? A breath? A spirit? It’s up to your imagination. Then in more detail the story goes on to tell how God formed a human out of the dust of the ground and breathed the ruach of life into his body. (Genesis 2)
“I can’t breathe,” a living child of God, filled with God’s ruach, gasped this past week. “I can’t breathe,” and we watched. Yes, as witnesses we watched—horrified by abuse, wanting to scream, startled to see our (white) complicity in racism played out before us. Our sacred ruach of life was squeezed out of this beloved one by another human who did not see the ebbing breath as holy. But we saw it. Our children even saw it. Bystanders begged for his life, but the stone hearts (alas, also filled with God’s ruach) held on, midwives of death. “I can’t breathe,” and George Floyd’s remaining breath faded away.
The sacredness of breathing sustains our physical body, but breathing is also a contemplative practice of prayer handed down from ancient mothers and fathers in faith. Some call it mindfulness, centering prayer, or breath prayer. Others call it meditation, or noticing God noticing us, or listening silence. I tend to call it contemplative prayer. What is it?
Contemplative prayer is the holy noticing of God’s presence-spirit-wind-ruach in one’s own breath. It is a loving awareness of the Holy One within our bodies. It is noticing God’s peace and love that transcend our worries and failures. It invites a release of anxiety and fear, of our own inner chatter, of our need to control. As creatures who tend to squeeze and choke the life out of ourselves and others with our busyness and self-preoccupation, attention to silence and breathing within God’s presence can expand and connect us with all humanity and creation. Contemplative prayer is not self-isolating but community-building. This prayer attending to breath connects us to the ruach of George Floyd and to all others who have suffered.
“I can’t breathe.”
Hiking on long trail up mountains, I would match my breathing to steps of my feet. One inhale to three steps; one exhale to three more steps. As the climb continued, one inhale to two steps. Then one to one as the slope steepened. Finally, I would have to stop and wait to “catch my breath,” breathe until the ruach did it’s creative work of re-supplying oxygen into my blood so muscles could work again.
“I can’t breathe, George pleaded. That is why you and I must catch our breath as the psalmist told us: “Be still and know that I am God.” We catch our breath and listen in God’s presence in order to be able to strengthen others so that they too can breathe.
I talked over the phone to my daughter living in Philadelphia, one of the aggrieved, protest-filled, teargassed and burned cities. To study art she moved to the big city of Philadelphia to be around diverse cultures. She has made a difference in the lives of many, especially the children. She has grown to be a beautiful woman, her India-brown skin adorned with her artistically designed tattoos. She knows firsthand, however, what it is liked to be labeled less worthy because of being a person of color.
On this evening, she tells me of sitting on her tiny apartment patio at night hearing the helicopters fly overhead. She wonders if she should join the protests, but is aware of the danger and filled with anxiety about the future. I remind her to breathe. Remember our mother-daughter pilgrimage to New Mexico, I say. Remember how we learned on each day’s journey to slow down, to focus on the guiding love that holds all people together. Don’t forget to prayerfully sit in the silence and breathe in God’s presence, exhale our fears and burdens, I tell her.
But I am really preaching to myself. I am the one who needs reminding not to forget to breathe in prayer. I, a white mother with a brown daughter, have been absolutely devastated, undone, haunted and shamed by these words, “I can’t breathe,” spoken by a man of color, prone on pavement whose neck was pinned and slowly, relentlessly squeezed shut by a police officer’s knee. “I can’t breathe” has been spoken again by the protesting black community on the streets.
So I must breathe in prayer—slowly, attentively, listening and joining the lament of the streets and of God. I realize now that I have felt called on this personal pilgrimage of love and lament (see last two posts), not just because of my own griefs and losses, but because all of a sudden a traumatic time of pandemic, protests, unemployment, hunger, death and loss would be crashing on all of us. One way we can listen more fully and join our neighbor’s and the world’s lament of pain is to stop, breathe, and silently notice God noticing us. Our common lament lifts and transcends our individual journeys. And so in my imagination I see the ruach that blew over the creation waters, the ruach Jesus blew on his disciples, the ruach that inhabited George’s life now blowing and stirring through us.
That’s what lament does. First, breathing our lament in prayer gives grief a purposeful direction. Second, breathing our lament gives our losses a place in a listening community and opens us to listen as well. And finally, breathing our lament in God’s presence transforms our anger at circumstances or injustice into a ruach energy that creates change larger than us as individuals. Yes, this week the practice of contemplative prayer has invited my lament to enter a deeper journey with a wider community, to listen more deeply to God’s presence in the stories I’ve been told. I can’t see the change within me yet—no less the world. But for the sake of others on this human pilgrimage, I must not forget to breathe.
I invite you to join me; we are all called to notice the holy ruach of God blowing like a mighty wind through us.
Leave a Reply