The Age of Breath

The Jesuit author Patrick Saint-Jean writes of the reality of racism that violates the desire of God: 

In Ignatian spirituality, breath symbolizes both God’s Spirit and the continuous gift of life. The breath embodies our ability to connect body and spirit. When breath departs from the body, so does the spirit. In that sense, breath is both universal and utterly unique to the individual….

Breathing testifies to the Divine Presence within each human. This means that when someone robs another human being of breath, they are denying that person’s most essential dignity. Furthermore, they are usurping God’s place. They are claiming a privilege that is not theirs to claim. To deny breath severs the living connections that are meant to unite us with God and one another….

Every breath is a reminder of God’s presence; every breath affirms the God-given value of each person’s spirit. In other words, the struggle for breath is a sacred struggle. It is an expression of the Holy Breath seeking to find freedom in our world.

During the summer of 2020, as I turned more deeply to the faith tradition I love so much, I learned to breathe as a person who is seeking Christ. I realized that racism’s ongoing refusal to acknowledge Black people as fellow human beings expressed not only disrespect for the Black community but also a disrespect for God and creation…. At the same time, I began to sense that, despite the ugliness of racism that has marred the Age of Breath, God continues to breathe through all things. I believe it was the Divine Breath that fanned the fires of racial protest, calling us around the world to speak out for justice.

Saint-Jean believes the pandemic and racial justice reckonings of 2020 compel us to pay attention to who can breathe, and who cannot.

Until the COVID-19 pandemic, breathing was something most white people took for granted. They may have never before realized the breathlessness that so many of us in the Black community experience daily. For centuries, people of color have had to constantly beg for oxygen, even though this is a gift that God grants freely to everyone. But now, in that breathless summer of 2020, whites were also called on to come face to face with the deeper significance of breathing….

Whatever the color of our skin, all of us have experienced the consequences of living in a world that has historically chosen to be unaware of some of its children. For centuries, people of color have been invisibly bleeding on the floor of systemic oppression, gasping for breath, dying from the thirst of repression, and starving from the lack of recognition and dignity. They have been the “least of these” of whom Jesus spoke (Matthew 25:40), those who surprise us by revealing the presence of the suffering Christ in our midst. They challenge us all to be aware of their dignity. They demand that we face what we have become.

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Our modern consumer culture is obsessed with the question “How?” How do I find success? How do I lose weight? How do I raise healthy kids? How do I overcome my anxiety? How do I live my best life now?Many of our best-selling products and books are predicated on answering the question “How?” And this question dominates American pulpits with sermons designed to attract religious consumers looking for practical help. Ours is a society fixated on techniques, formulas, and processes.In this regard, we share a lot in common with pre-Christian societies. Pagan religions—like the sort practiced in Naaman’s homeland—were a spirituality of technique. They were interested in securing desired outcomes through the appeasement, manipulation, and control of deities and spiritual forces. Idolatry and pagan worship were all about “How?” How do I defeat my enemy? How do I know the future? How do I ensure a good harvest? How do I make it rain? How do I cure my disease?The answer to “How?” required employing the right techniques or processes in the form of incantations, witchcraft, divination, sacrifices, astrology, or other superstitious practices. If done precisely and correctly, the gods would give you what you sought. Deviate from the correct process, however, and you’d be denied. It was very mechanical, transactional, and fearful—like ordering lunch from Seinfeld’s “Soup Nazi.” Naaman carried these pagan assumptions when he sought healing from Israel’s God. He expected Elisha to give him elaborate instructions and detailed rituals to cure his leprosy. And, we must assume that Naaman had already tried every kind of spell and sorcery available in Syria without success. So, when Elisha told him to simply bathe in the Jordan River—the most ordinary activity imaginable—Naaman was furious.Was Elisha mocking him? Was he deliberately treating him with disrespect because he was a foreigner? Was the prophet of Israel hiding his knowledge about how to control his God because Naaman was his Syrian enemy? Was he holding out on Naaman hoping to get paid before giving up his secret knowledge? No. Elisha was not being cruel. And unlike the pagan priests in Syria, he was not being transactional. He was being transformational. Elisha knew that Naaman’s idolatry and paganism were fixated on detailed techniques, so he didn’t give him any. He wanted to shift Naaman’s focus from the question “How?” to the question “Who?” The most important thing was not how to heal his leprosy, but who would heal his leprosy. Elisha wanted Naaman to discover the living God of Israel who was beyond the control of any priest or prophet.Be wary of ministries or Christian leaders offering endless techniques with guaranteed outcomes. And be cautious of those always selling solutions about how to do something God’s way, but who display very little of his character themselves. It is entirely possible to run our lives with biblical principles or Christian values, and still miss the only thing that ultimately matters—Jesus Christ himself. The real question of our faith, and of life itself, is not “How?” but “Who?” DAILY SCRIPTURE MATTHEW 7:18-23  2 KINGS 5:1-27 WEEKLY PRAYER Benedict of Nursia (480 – 543) Almighty God, give us wisdom to perceive you, intellect to understand you, diligence to seek you, patience to wait for you, eyes to behold you, a heart to meditate upon you, and life to proclaim you, through the power of the Spirit of our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.

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