Breathing Humanity

Breathing Humanity

Ruach Elohim – (Breath of Life)

Breathing is a radical exercise. It harkens the human back to that primal breath that brought life to the world and to quest for humanity. Breathing is a practice of radical hope deeply woven into the human DNA. Every cell in the body celebrates each breath, affirms “I’m alive!” We breathe to become humanity with and for each other.

A baby’s first breath: the unfamiliar wind (the spirit of life) courses and ripples through its body: lungs and muscles contract and pulsate. The baby screams: delight and distress simultaneously wash over its fragile frame. Its voice added to the human chorus.

Hesed – (Loving Kindness)

Loving is not incidental; it is intentional. Loving is the journey and character of the human quest, the route to and for the beloved neighbor – the stranger (the foreigner, the differently-abled, the differently-understood, the differently-oriented, the different). Breathing engages loving kindness in the practice of radical hope.

Charis – (Grace)

Allied comrades, neighbor-strangers and planet, weave loving kindness between the wounds and the violence, between the not yet and almost now, between yesterdays and tomorrows. Breathe.