Go On, Adam, Breathe
Jack Baumgartner, “Go On, Adam, Breathe,” linocut, 9″x12″ (2012).
The North African theologian Tertullian (155-220 AD) imagines the episode of Genesis 2:7 (“Then the Lord God formed man from the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and the man became a living being.”) as if God were a kind of ceramicist.
Humanity could not become living flesh, Tertullian argues, by mere oxygen. Something far more potent would be needed, as I summarize it in my book, A Body of Praise.
God’s breath, he writes, is like a fiery breath, “competent as it were to bake clay into a different quality, into flesh as though into earthenware."
And while we may be tempted to think that God's in-spiration is a one-and-done act, there is, in fact, nothing in all of creation that can subsist apart from God's loving commitment to keep us alive—even right now.
In the words of Psalm 104, if God removes his breath from us, we die and revert to inert mud.
In most cases, God's breath seems indistinguishable from the natural course of things. In other cases, something miraculous must occur to revive our living, breathing, flourishing self, as Ezekiel 37 suggests.
In the case of the disciples, Jesus himself breathes upon them, as John 20 recounts it, in order that they might receive the Holy Spirit who, in the divine descent at Pentecost, will enable them to live as a foretaste of life in the new creation.
We come into the world with one forceful breath and we usually leave it with one feeble breath.
How well we breathe in and breathe out, argues Bessel Van der Kolk, in The Body Keeps the Score, has a direct effect on our ability to manage anger, depression and anxiety.
Deep draughts of breath can often, moreover, help us to feel grounded in reality, present to our own emotions, and secure in the face of forces that would cause us to feel frightfully off-kilter and unsafe in the world.
So what if...?
What if you took a moment right now to take three deep breaths in and out in order to give your body the gift of peace?
What if you encouraged the people you live with to take a deep breath in order to know that they're going to be ok?
And what if our pastors and worship leaders gave their people a meaningful moment of silence at church in order to be present to their lives and to the God who sustains them by the sheer gift of his breath?
So take a deep breath, friends, and let's thank God for it.
