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.