BREATHE!

INTRODUCTION

The title of my homily for this 7th Monday after Easter is, “Breathe!”

One of the 3 key images of the Holy Spirit is breath.

The other 2 are fire and the dove.

Suggestion for this week before the feast of Pentecost: become very aware of your breath.

Some people, as we hear in today’s first reading, could say, “We have never even heard that there is a Holy Spirit.”

Come Holy Spirit!
Come Holy Spirit to all peoples.
Come Holy Spirit – be to us as close as our breath.

BREATHING PRACTICES – DURING PRAYER WORKSHOPS

If you have ever taken a workshop on prayer, you might have experienced people saying, “Breathe!”

The several that I have taken said, “Practice breathing. Be aware of your breathing!”

You will have people have you stand up and stretch – and then at some point to have you sit down. They will ask you to be aware of your body – your butt on the chair – your back into the back of the chair – your feet on the floor – your hands on our lap or at your side.

Too many times we start praying too soon – too fast.

So prayer teachers will suggest coming into church or into your prayer space and stretch and be conscious of that as well as your body in a chair and then they will then suggest becoming aware of your breathing.

Some teachers will say plants give off oxygen – without which we would not be alive.

They will then tell you that our bodies breath in oxygen – O2 – otherwise we will not be alive.

Then if I have this right, the body changes that oxygen that we bring into our lungs and it becomes energy and fuel for our body through our blood system and then it becomes carbon dioxide – CO2 – and that goes back to our lungs and we breathe that out – and then that carbon dioxide goes back into the plants to nourish them and on and on and on.

You will be told to let go of that information and just be conscious of your breathing. Just “Breathe in. Breathe out. Breathe in. Breathe out.”

ONE OF THE GREAT SCENES IN THE BIBLE

One of the great scenes in the Bible about breathing takes place in the Book of Genesis – when God creates, sculpts, the first human, Adam, meaning, clay, earth, and then God breathes life, the Spirit of Life, into that first person.

We grasp that because we know the difference between a statue and a human being – a doll and a person. We know the scene of the birth of a baby – when the delivery room people get that baby breathing.

We have stood at the bedside of a person dying – seeing their shortness of breath – wondering if they are still alive. We know when we are out of breath. We know when stairs and hills are tough – and we have to do some more exercising.

We might have seen scenes in movies or on beaches when someone drowns – and someone is giving that person artificial respiration.

So the writer of that story in Genesis has God breathing life – breath – into his creation.

PRAYER

And so a good way to pray is to just breathe in and out – breathing in the breath of God and breathing out the opposite of God.

A good way to pray is to deep breathe.

A good way to pray is to say, “Come Holy Spirit.” and breathe in the breath of life.

A good way to pray is to realize while we’re breathing in we are in communion with all people and all creation – trees, water, wind – which is all in union with each other. We’re all connected. We’re all in union with each other.

These chemicals are being recycled – along with water – and what’s in us was in others – and in plants and trees and we’re all in this together. Interesting.

And we know when we walk into a room – our spirit – our attitude – our mood – effects the mood and atmosphere of the room. Happy faces, sad faces, impact our face. So hopefully we rise from prayer and bring joy to the world.
Come Holy Spirit…..

CONCLUSION

Take the time this week – this time of preparation for Pentecost – to be aware of your breathing – and this amazing process called life – and its net, its interchange, and its interconnection. Be aware of the Holy Spirit in us and about us – and in all people. Amen.

Come Holy Spirit.







This is a weekday homily. Someone asked that I put it on my blog.

ON BEING SPECIAL:
ON BEING ONESELF

Quote for the Day - May 17, 2010

"How many cares one loses when one decides not to be something but to be someone."


Remark by Coco [Gabrielle] Chanel [1883-1970]

Photo on left 1920; photo on right date unknown.

GRAVITY

INTRODUCTION

The title of my homily is, “Gravity.”

Interesting: that’s the reality that hit me as I began to reflect upon ascension – just the opposite of gravity.

Interesting: I also found myself taking a poetic approach to this theme of Ascension.

Well, as you might have noticed, today’s readings are rather poetic.

And here in the Northern Hemisphere this feast of the Ascension takes place when all is springing, greening, flowering, outward and upward. In Spring the earth is very poetic.

Gravity….

What goes up, must come down. Is that always true? Does the Law of Gravity always work – here on Planet Earth?

THE FEAST OF THE ASCENSION

I’ve read a couple of times that the theology of Ascension – the feast we’re celebrating today – the Ascension of Christ into heaven from earth – from hanging around here with his disciples in some mysterious ways – and then moving back or forward into the hereafter – has a lot more study and development to go through. And that’s a reality in the history of Christianity and theology. It takes centuries – prayer and reflection – development – nuancing – rereading the Scriptures – rereading the writings of the Fathers of the Church – and those who came after them – so as to understand bit by bit these illusive mysteries in God – the Trinity – Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

And talking about mystery, there is the great mystery that the Son – the Second Person in this Trinity – is also human besides being Divine. We grasp the human; hopefully we ascend to the Divine.

Gravity – to ponder from time to time the heavy reality of God – and to ascend – to rise – to get up – to stand up after that pondering – that kneeling or sitting down – that kind of praying – with newness of life – with lightness of spirit.

And I’m assuming that’s one hope of this feast – that we leave church today – with bounce and leap of Spirit – but not completely up in the air – that’s unrealistic – but down to earth – but with a renewed mission, plan, hope, to make this a better world because of our presence and life in it.

I think that’s a possible flow of prayer and thought from today’s readings: looking up – then getting back down to business. Isn’t that what Luke is saying in today’s first reading from Acts and today’s Gospel – that life has it’s ups and downs – mountains and valleys – as well as the plains – the flat dull of life at times – and then to get a bounce and a lift – because if we flat line it, we can be dead before we’re dead?

THE BOOK OF GENESIS

We don’t use The Book of Genesis for this feast, but I think it’s important background for this feast. The Book of Genesis, the first book of the Bible, has God coming down to earth. Genesis begins with earth – God getting down to earth and creating and forming and sculpting us up out of the dirt and mud of earth – and breathing “ruach,” the Hebrew word for Spirit into us – that we too might experience life – togetherness – twoness, threeness, Trinity – family – community – being a person – having intelligence – imagination – creativity – play – laughter – joy – future – possibilities – forgiveness – gracefulness – foreverness – eternity – the whole mystery and gamut of being a person.

The Book of Genesis says we are created in the image and likeness of God. God does not want to be alone – so God created us.

We don’t want to be alone and so we work and hope for relationships with others – marriage, friendships, neighbors – and hopefully a relationship with God.

The Book of Genesis says God loved to be with his creations – Adam and Eve – Hebrew words for the first male and female – and to walk and talk with them in the cool of the evening in the Garden God created.

Genesis paints with words the deepest dreams of human beings – the desire for paradise – everything going right – so we too can say what God says, “And it is good!”

But Genesis also paints with words the deepest nightmares of human beings – brother killing brother – eating forbidden fruit – being thrown out of paradise – a flood that destroys everything – as well as discovering, “And all went wrong!”

To me the two heaviest, gravest, toughest texts in the whole Bible are: Genesis 6: 6 and Matthew 26:24b.

Genesis 6:6 “And the Lord was sorry that he had made humankind on the earth, and it grieved him to his heart.”

Matthew 26: 24b – about Judas – “It would have been better for that one not to have been born.”

When parents feel that – or say that – that’s grave. That’s deadly.

And underneath all this is the gift of freedom. We humans are given the gift and power of being able to make free choices.

And give people freedom and they can make gardens or junkyards. They can liter or make lovely. They can choose to destroy – rather than to rise, to ascend, to higher aspirations.

So the gift of freedom – choice – comes with the possibility of great joy as well as great grief.

These are central realities to what makes human beings human – that we can climb, keep evolving, ascending to the Trinity.

I love the first book of the Bible – because it spells out in poetry – what I see happening every day – with us males and females.

God wants to walk and talk and be with us in this garden called Earth – and God cries when we destroy it – and each other.

Genesis – that first book of the Bible – says all these things.

God wants us to rise – to ascend higher and higher and higher.

Evolution – rising from earth – to see humans choosing life – choosing to rise - to stand on our own two feet – these steps humans can make, the human dance, gives God great delight.

Devolution – falling on our face – making a mess of our life – gives God great sadness.

It’s the same with parents – seeing their children star on stage or field or in academics – or just in being neat kids – gives moms and dads great delight. And the opposite gives them great fright.

And when we fail, lucky for us – God doesn’t give up.

We can read the Jewish scriptures or the Parables of Jesus and read how God sent prophet after prophet to challenge us to rise – to ascend – to do our best – and too often we kill prophets – especially the Son sent by the Father with the hope: “Surely they will listen to my Son.” [Cf. Mark 12:1-11]

CHRIST
Christ – Christianity – proclaims there is more – there is this call for ascension – here and hereafter.

Christ was degraded, beaten, abused, made to carry his cross to his place of death – and thrown down on the ground and nailed to a cross and then raised up against a dark sky – and cursed some more and then dies and is buried.

Christ was one of us – experiencing the ups and downs of life – in dramatic messy scenes.

Christ is also one of God – experiencing resurrection and ascension after death.

THE ASCENSION

The Ascension celebrates hope – gives us hope – that we – even if we fall, we can rise and ascend to the Father – who created us for forever.

The Ascension is spelt out in today’s Gospel – Jesus is going home to the Father.

The Ascension for us is spelt out in today’s first reading: okay Christ has gone. Now let’s get back down the hill and get back down to work.

Gravity. Go down that hill and do the stuff that I have done.

Love one another as I have loved you.

I understand love as "love in spite of". Love in spite of – in spite of the crush and crumble of stuff and situations, body, spirit – broken lives – broken families at times – sickness – loss of job – is the way to ascend.

Don’t you love it when you see a couple 46 years married and it’s obvious to everyone, these two love each other in spite of the wrinkles and the love handles – and that they have heard each other’s stories a thousand times – and they still laugh and smile at the right time.

Love in spite of gravity – aging – sagging – bending – stooping over – aches and pains - cancer in the prostate or breast – is the way to ascend. While aging, while gravity is winning, while the grave starts to come into sight or focus, this couple or this person knows there is ascension from the grave because of Christ.

CONCLUSION

So this feast of the ascension is an Easter feast, a resurrection feast, that yes we die – but as Christians we hope in the hereafter – in the next life.

I know you’re not supposed to do it ecologically and for a few other reasons, but I still love it when families release balloons on the anniversary of the death of a loved one and everyone stands there looking up at the sky.

I loved it when I went to my brother-in-law’s sister Marge’s funeral and one of her daughters released a whole strip of live butterflies.

I loved it at another funeral when they released a half-dozen white birds – who flew off into the sky and all watched them as they ascended and disappeared.

And then everyone turned and went back to living everyday life. Amen.

PUT DOWN 

Quote of the Day - May 16,  2010


"No one can make you feel inferior without your consent."


Eleanor Roosevelt [1884-1962] in Catholic Digest, August 1960, p. 102

HAVING THE GRACE
TO LIFT UP YOUR FACE

Quote for the Day - May 15, 2010


"The time
cracks into furious flower. Lifts its face
all unashamed. And sways in wicked grace."

Gwendolyn Brooks [1917- ] In The Mecca [1968], The Second Sermon on the Warplane, stanza 4

OBLITERATED

Quote for the Day - May 14, 2010

"Beware of allowing a tactless word, a rebuttal, a rejection to obliterate the whole sky."

Anais Nin [1903-1977], The Diary of Anais Nin, volume III, January 1944

EITHER OFF OR ON?

Quote for the Day - May 13,  2010


"There are going to be times when we can't wait for somebody. Now, you're either on the bus or off the bus. If you're on the bus, and you get left behind, then you'll find it again. If you're off the bus in the first place - then it won't make a damn."


Ken Kesey [September 17, 1935 --- November 10, 2001], Quoted by Tom Wolfe in The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test [1968], chapter 6


Painting on top: "The Green Car" by the American artist Wiliam Glackens [1870-1938], Oil on canvas, 1910.