Holy Spirit

Prayer begins with the inhale.  Before we are able to utter anything with our lips we must first draw through them the air that fills us, enabling not only our speech but also our life.  And we must remember that humanity did not take the first breath but that it was given to us.  God’s exhale became humanity’s first inhale, filling us not only with life, but the ability to participate in the creative power of breathing.  For it was God’s breath that uttered the world into existence, and God’s breath that filled humanity with life.

And so before we gather words to give to our God, we must first realize that this activity of prayer is itself a gift from God.  It is the very breath that God breathed into humanity that we in turn direct back to God.  Taking in and breathing out this breath of God is no trifling matter. “This is not an enterprise to be entered into lightly,” Eugene Peterson notes. “When we pray we are using words that bring us into proximity with words that break cedars, shake the wilderness, make the oaks whirl, and strip forests bare (Ps. 29:5-9).”

The same Spirit that descends on Jesus at the Jordan sends him out to the wilderness. The same spirit confirms our identity and sends us to the wolves. In fact, these are not two separate acts, but one act of revealing identity. I’m suspicious of the notion that difficulty builds character. It can, I suppose. But it can equally devastate someone’s faith. The desert fathers usually required monks to spend a substantial amount of time in community before they allowed them to live the life of an anchorite. The desert can kill both body and soul. In his Spiritual Exercises, St. Ignatius of Loyola points out that the Lenten Retreat can lead to either consolation or desolation, and advises pastors on how to recognize the signs for each. Even the relatively uncomplicated way we participate in Lent can have significant consequences, not the least of which is the temptation to believe that we survive the hardship of our lives alone and by our own strength. Christ didn’t even do that. Angels attended him. Lent, if nothing else, should teach us that even in simple disciplines we need the encouragement of our brothers and sisters in the faith, and temptation requires nothing less than divine assistance. Blessed are the poor in spirit because they realize their predicament both as easy prey for the Great Accuser, and their dependence on all the resources available in Heaven’s stronghold just to get through forty days. Some of my clients with substance abuse issues would argue that all those resources are necessary to survive the next minute. Trials may build character, but they begin their construction by destroying foundational belief in our autonomy. We are, in fact, children of God in need of his words, his servants and his blessing.