breathing

started to be written in early September 2010:

I just finished my surgery rotation.  As part of the rotation, we spend a few mornings with anesthesiologists doing intubations, practicing breathing for people with the bag-mask, etc.  It is common practice after someone is asleep/unconscious to breathe (ventilate) for them using the bag and mask for a little while so that their lungs fill up with oxygen for the body to use while they are not breathing temporarily during the actual process of putting the breathing tube in place (intubation).  It struck me watching the bag-mask ventilation how intimate a process this is.  It's not mouth-to-mouth resuscitation, but the motion of my right hand pressing the bag to push air into the mask and my other hand holding up the chin to open up the airway for the air to pass through is strikingly crucial for the patient who is asleep.

I am reminded in thinking about breath and the life to which it connects us of how often that image comes up in the Bible.  It is there in the very beginning as God breathes his breath of life into the human being, "and the man became a living being" (Gen. 2:7).  It is the promise of God to his people as they wait in exile, feeling dead and disassembled like a pile of dry bones without the breath of life to hold them together and give them purpose:  "I will put breath in you, and you will come to life" (Eze 37:4-6).  It is there when Jesus speaks to the startled, uncertain disciples after his resurrection, breathing on them and giving them the Holy Spirit (Breath) along with his peace and his commission (Jn. 20:21-23). 

That final image always reminds me of the way C.S. Lewis picks up the image of God breathing on us in the Chronicles of Narnia.  He pictures the great Lion Aslan breathing new life and courage and vision into his children.  Aslan breathes onto Lucy to help her meet the challenge of doing right alone.  He breathes onto the cold stone statues of the Witch's courtyards, bringing them to radiant life.

The word in both Hebrew (ruah) and Greek (pneuma) for spirit and breath/wind are the same.  Thus, the promise of God's Spirit to live in his people is a promise for his breath, his life, to live in us, enabling us to live the life we were made to live.  It is God's promise that he will pour out his Spirit on all people, Jews and Greeks (Acts 2:17).  It is his Breath in us that is our deposit of salvation, a guarantee of our inheritance (Eph. 1:13-14). 

So as I have the precious and uncommon opportunity to breathe temporarily for others, I think about the breath I myself breathe.  I think about the life I live and the possibility that I have to live out God's life, his Spirit-empowered life, in my own hours and days.   I think about the possibility of breathing out the fragrance of the knowledge of Christ, the smell of life, the rich, sweet, poignant aroma of the Living One (2 Cor. 2:14-16) in the midst of lifeless bones, despairing hearts, suffering people.  As Paul says, "And who is equal to such a task?"  May it be so.