Breath
An afternoon to myself or week off always sound great until I have them. Once they arrive, I generally feel tired, or frustrated or simply worthless. That's the hardest part, is feeling worthless. In high school when I was alone I usually felt like no one wanted me. I began to believe that my friends only hung out with me out of obligation. I thoroughly believed that they were off somewhere, with each other, counting their blessings they got away without me. It was as if when I was by myself, my sense of self would begin to decay. One minute I was a person, the next a zombie.
It would be nice if that ended in high school. It would be wonderful to pronounce that I went to college and found myself and now I always like what I see in the mirror. It would be nice. The reality though is a little tougher, a little messier. I did change a lot in college, but what I discovered was less of a "perfect self image pill" and more of an explanation. The truth is I don't really belong here. I never feel comfortable in my own skin because I am not really supposed to, at least not on my own. Scientists say that human bodies need oxygen to breathe, but I know that I need to be breathed on, in order to no longer decay.
I am not a Biblical scholar. I would estimate that I have read between 50-60% of the Bible and understood less than that. However, I have in my limited reading noticed patterns. Lately my favorite pattern is God breathing on people, and His breath producing life. When God created Adam, He started with clay and built what we would call a nice sculpture. God took dirt, added some spit, mixed it up and molded the first man. Their was a problem though, clay doesn't move, or think or feel. It just sits. Eventually it dries, and crumbles. It is not immune to decay. God does something amazing here though, He breathes on His clay-man and the clay-man lives! One breathe produces everything that we identify as uniquely human; awareness, love, humor, awe, life...all in one breath. This hardly the end though, if you go to Ezekiel 37, God takes His prophet (Ezekiel, hence the name of the book) and takes him to a valley of dried up nasty bones. Full decay in effect. So God tells Zeke, to ask the bones to live, and what do you know, they do. They form together; bones, flesh, muscle, hair all together and those bones become an imposing army. They only have one flaw, they are not actually alive. They simply stand like the Terra Catta (sp?) soldiers, imposing, but frozen. This new army seems doomed to fall back into decay. Then God commands Zeke to ask for God's breath to enter this army, and they also live like our clay friend. One more example, my fav. John 20 paints an interesting picture of the disciples, a picture of them cowering in a locked room hiding from Jews. You see about three days earlier their leader (Jesus) went and got Himself killed. So these disciples, after three years of constant moving around, miracle doing, teaching and praying took up a new vocation, decaying. In the midst of this mess, the risen Jesus appears before them. He doesn't yell or admonish them, instead He does exactly what God has always done, He breathe's on them. That day a church was born.
The last example is my favorite because I can relate with the pattern of living one minute, only to begin decaying the next. I know that when I try and do everything or nothing on my own I decay. I know that I was created to only exist with the breath of God bringing me life and keeping me going. So my prayer today is simple, that God would breathe on me, so that I may live and even have the ability to serve Him.
