The Deployment of the Soul: Breath

Disclaimer:  This post (and this blog) has absolutely no ecclesiastical endorsement of any kind.

“The Lord God formed man out of the clay of the ground 

and blew into his nostrils the breath of life,

and so man became a living being.”-Gen 2:7

The Deployment of the Soul:  Breath

One of my more interesting “guilty pleasures” is an app, which is on both my iPad and iPhone, called iFunny.  iFunny collects memes that its users collect and posts them to the app for browsing.  The editors then choose what they call ‘Features’ periodically throughout each day.  I found one many months ago that made me laugh and somewhat gave substance to this piece of the Deployment of the Soul.  The meme is a screen shot of a text message between two friends presumably still in high school.  The text string reads like this:

Person 1:  Hey man whats up?

Person 2:  Just converting oxygen into carbon dioxide.  You know, the usual.

Person 1:  Wtf man?  schools out, why you still doing science?!

Person 2:  -_- breathing, Jake, I’m breathing.

Upon meditating upon the basic need of breath, I first thought of the scripture passage from Genesis.  The source and creator of all life is God, which is held to be to true by the Church.  The next thought for some reason turned to this meme.  From the moment we are born, we breath.  When we breath our last, we die.  

Through the mystery of creation, we have come to understand that our bodies require oxygen to live.  When I took my first Biology lecture in my first semester of college, I could not grasp the biological function of converting oxygen to carbon dioxide as a part of producing energy.  I still could not explain it, other than it happens.  

When considering the deployment of the soul as a spiritual exercise, one must remove all other things from their life:  TV, music, books, food, water.  These basic needs should be appropriately reintroduced whether it is after a few days or a few hours.  However, the one basic need that cannot be removed for any length of time is breathing.  On this deployment during combatives training, we saw very quickly just what happens when oxygen is deprived for even a few seconds.  The person can pass out and create all sorts of medical complications.  

The ancient Hebrew word for “breath” is also the same word for “spirit”--ruah.  So in this deployment of the soul, the breath becomes the focus.  As breath becomes the focus, meditating upon the Word of God creates an opportunity to allow the Spirit of God to find us.  The Book of Job introduces to our meditation an interesting reflection as it is written, “In his hand is the soul of every living thing, and the life breath of all mankind” -Job 12:10.  

God has our souls in his hand and with every breath, it becomes clearer that the gift of life is the result of the immanence of God.  The nearness of God to man has been the fruit of theologians for centuries throughout the history of the Church.  The discovery and rediscovery of faith and a relationship with Jesus comes not just the realization that God is near but the actualization of the act of breathing in itself.  These two concepts must coincide in the heart.  Actually breathing must reveal to us in each breath is spirit and life, both gifts from God.  

The author of the Acts of the Apostles writes, “It is He who gives to everyone life and breath and everything” -Acts 17:25.  Breathing is one of many things that are universal to every human being.  This one act, chosen by God, I believe was deliberately created to ensure that all people can have at the basic level the same need.  The foundation of the Church is universality.  The Catholic Church calls itself the universal Church because of the realization that all people have the same needs.  The Church exists to meet the needs of the people in all situations, whether they are rich or poor, unknown or famous, weak or strong, man or woman.  

The breath is the the most basic need of each person and, through the gift of God, it is also the most basic prayer.  Each breath is a witness to the glory and power of God.  And thus it can be the greatest tool in building up people and communities by offering words of hope, comfort, praise and thanksgiving.  Also each breath can be the vehicle by which our words can wound and inflict some of the most grievous pain upon each other.  

In closing, two songs have lines, which sing to the glory of God, speak of breath clearly and I like to share them.  The first is from Avalon’s song “Testify To Love”:  With every breath I take, I will give thanks to God above.  The other is from Steven Curtis Chapman’s song “Let Us Pray”:  Like breathing out and breathing in, Let us pray.  Like breathing and breathing in, dear Lord, let us pray.  

The Deployment of the Soul

Jesus said to his disciples:

“What is your opinion? 

If a man has a hundred sheep and one of them goes astray,

will he not leave the ninety-nine in the hills

and go in search of the stray? 

And if he finds it, amen, I say to you, he rejoices more over it

than over the ninety-nine that did not stray. 

In just the same way, it is not the will of your heavenly Father

that one of these little ones be lost.”-Matthew 18:12-14

A military deployment gives a soldier plenty of time to work, to worry, and to think.  Being on my third deployment has shown me both my age and clarity of thought.  

The “war” in Afghanistan began, in my opinion, as a just police action for the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States of America in order to bring to justice those responsible for that crime.  Many lives were lost on that day and have been lost throughout the entire period of conflict in this country.  

This reflection is more of a postulation on the necessity for a ‘deployment of the soul.’  In this context, the deployment of the soul is a spiritual act which separates one from things in life and reintroduces facets of life that bring meaning.  The American culture is endowed with a sense of consumerism, a fact exemplified during the holiday season.  Thus, the deployment of the soul, timed with the season of advent, creates an opportunity to make Christmas into what the holiday has always been about:  The coming of the Savior so that we may have life.  

According to Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, the most basic needs are:  Breath, food, water, sleep, sex and balance.  These are all things which the Church professes to be necessary and are good for life.  However, each of these has its own limitations.  We cannot breath more than our lungs can take.  We must eat food to continue to live.  Water absolutely necessary to life, but it is possible to cause trauma by excessive drinking of water.  Sleep is necessary for proper neurological function, but too much sleep could indicate laziness or some sort of medical condition.  Sex is necessary to propagate life and is the manifestation of marriage.  Sex, in its proper place, is not to be promiscuous, but rather be the total act of self-giving and the closest thing humanity can find to perfect love.  It is, in itself, the participation in the divinity of God.  

The second group of needs, according to Maslow, are the needs grouped by safety:  Body, employment, resources, morality, family, health and property.  These, too, are not condemned by the Church.  Fitness of the body is an indicator of discipline but vanity to the excess can misconstrue and disfigure the sanctity of the physical body.  Employment is necessary for all people and leads to resources.  Work can be dignified when the needs of the person are met in conjunction with the needs of the employer, however, employment that is exploitative of others is inherently selfish and undermines the dignity of the human person.  The resources acquired through daily labors provide stability to the human in order to fulfill more basic needs.  Family is found in the first three tiers of the hierarchy of needs.  Family is the fullness of love manifested between a husband and wife.  

The pyramid structure of the hierarchy of needs works its way through esteem and self-actualization.  This seemingly tangental thought process speaks directly to the gospel passage for today.  In order to find ourselves spiritually, we must in some respect take on a retreat.  However, to be counted among the sheep as the lost then found requires more than just a retreat.  Most retreats that I have been on have been efforts to show that God is waiting for us to find him.  A deployment of the soul is much more than this. 

On this deployment of the soul, I am learning that being removed for an extensive period of time from my own comfort zone with a group of people who were all foreign to me, stripped me of everything.  The first things to reappear were the basic of needs.  I was fed and given water.  I was assured that my continued breath was utmost in the minds of the leadership.  The denial of sex in this environment by order reveals both its necessity and sanctity.  This deprival also distinguishes between lustful sex and loving sex.  On basic and fundamental level, God provides can be conjectured.  

The security of the body by the squad, platoon, company, and so on also carries with it the security of the steady paycheck and the continued trust that the next level of needs will be met.  Thus God provides.  

Increased familiarity among strangers creates an environment that fosters intimacy and friendships.  This third level of needs lays the foundation for the soul to thrive.  Pope John Paul II, in his encyclical letter Redemptor Hominis, tells us that “man cannot live without love.”  The unspoken love between battle buddies in deployment is far more intimate than the jest which seemingly mocks this bond.  The willingness to do what it takes for the man next to you on the battlefield is a reflection of Lord’s sacrifice.  He tells us, “There is no greater love than this: that a person would lay down his life for the sake of his friends” (John 15:13).  In a deployment, God provides.  

During this third tour, I am finding that there is a decrease in my desire of “things” and that my “needs” will be met.  It is necessary to train my mind, body, and soul to know, believe, and trust that when this deployment is over that these needs will continue to be met.  This renewal of life opens the heart and the mind to allow God to find us.  The scripture passage today tells us how God rejoices over the one that is found.  So when the faith is hard to follow and the world hurls its stones, God may be calling us to more than just a retreat, he may be calling us to the deployment of the soul.