The Breath of God Gives Me Life

The other day I was sitting at a stoplight when I looked in my rearview mirror and noticed my back window was spotted with rain, so I flipped on the rear window wiper to clear it and waited.  I could hear the little servo motor whirring to life, but the wiper wasn’t moving.  In fact, I couldn’t even see the wiper.  Sometimes it gets stuck though, bumped below the window and needs to be physically moved to get it working again.

So when I pulled up at my dad’s house a minute later, I got out of the car to take a look.

The wiper was gone.

Not just the wiper blade but the arm that holds the wiper blade was gone.  All that was left was a rusty bolt and some broken plastic.

When I explained to my dad that the wiper was gone, he asked me what I thought happened to it.

And I said, “Well, I’m thinking it might have gotten knocked off when you took it to the car wash the other day.”

My dad nodded.  “Yeah, could have been then.”

I continued.  “I warned you that it was possible the only thing holding my car together was dirt and that if you washed it, something like this might happen.”

Back when I lived in Florida and these little annoyances of life popped up, I would head out to the Wetlands or some of the other nature parks in the area and do what the Japanese call Forest Bathing.  It doesn’t mean actual bathing; it simply means immersing yourself in nature, breathing it in, listening to the sounds of God’s creation.  Ideally, it eases anxiety.

Most of the time, I found myself out at the nearby Wetlands with my camera first thing in the morning.  It was a good way to start the day, but sometimes, as my stress levels required it, I would head out later, around noon.

Around noon was lunchtime for the osprey.

That time of day at the Wetlands could be blistering hot depending on the time of year.  Some days the skies were cloudless and the sun so bright it washed out all color.  There were no blue skies only a limitless blinding white.

Somedays, though, there were clouds here and there and I would stare up and watch the osprey circle overhead.  The vultures would appear in another circle even higher than the osprey.  Even the vultures knew to give the osprey space when the bird was feeding.

The osprey always circled above the water.  And if you were patient, as they were patient, there would come a moment when it looked like the osprey had been shot from the sky.  It would fall, dive from above, seemingly reaching terminal velocity in seconds and would hit the surface of the pond in an explosion, a geyser of water, before emerging again, shaking the water from its feathers and holding a fish in its massive talons.

The only thing that rivaled the sheer coolness of that moment was when the bald eagle joined in the fishing.  As big as an osprey is, the bald eagle is even larger and while the osprey dives down from the sky, the bald eagle will swing down low, as if it was getting style points, as if it was posturing, showing off for me, maybe hoping I was with National Geographic. 

This one day, I watched a bald eagle swoop in low, its talons barely cutting through the surface of the water.  I took its picture, freezing it in time.

Think for a moment on our reading today from Genesis 1:2 … “… the earth was a formless void and darkness covered the face of the deep, while a wind from God swept over the face of the waters.”

Now picture again that bald eagle sweeping over the face of the waters at the Wetlands.

I dare you to spend time immersed in the natural world and not see the Holy Spirit at work.  Genesis tells us that the creation of the world took six days and on the seventh day, God rested, but every time I spend even a second in nature, I see that God’s creation is ongoing. 

What if the story of creation in Genesis is actually three stories, the story of what happened, the story of what is happening and the story of what will happen?  What if God is still creating?  What if God hasn’t rested yet?  What if the world is still changing, still growing—is, in fact, being reborn day after day after day?

Spring was always my favorite time of the year to visit the Wetlands—spring meant babies, not just birds, but alligators too.  I rooted for all the babies.  I rooted for the tiny little gators, yellow striped that emerged from the tall grasses by the water.  And I rooted for the sandhill crane chicks, whose parents demanded they be up and walking the moment they escaped the egg. 

I remember one year during a drought, I watched these day-old sandhill crane babies up to their necks in mud as they struggled to follow their parents to the road.  It was nerve wracking, but they made it and thank goodness because I was sure that if I waded into that mud to rescue them, their parents would have pecked me to death.

But the most awe-inspiring sight at the Wetlands happened on this island a ways back from the road.  You could hear the life before you could see it.  And you needed a good pair of binoculars or a superzoom camera to even see what was happening.

This was where ninety percent of the birds made their nests, Great Egrets, Cattle Egrets, Great Blue Herons, Little Blue Herons, the red-eyed Black Crown Night Heron and the angelic-appearing Roseate Spoonbills.  When all those babies hatched, the island was filled with crying, hungry birds.

In 2 Corinthians 13 verse 13, Paul writes, “The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with all of you.”

When I listened to those hungry baby birds, I felt a communion with them, because I was hungry too, not physically, but spiritually.  It was my Spirit that was crying out.

Once, when I took a friend to the Wetlands so I could show her a Great Blue Heron nest that sat close to the road, she was so focused on the nest, she almost missed an even more jaw-dropping moment when right then, a large, ten-foot alligator, forever known as Godzilla, began a leisurely walk across the road in front of us. 

On the other side of us, a car had stopped, the driver’s side door popped open, and a woman peeked her head out.

And meanwhile I was clawing and slapping at my friend’s arm, trying to get her attention, because she was still walking toward Godzilla, oblivious to him as she trained her camera lens on the birds’ nest.

She stopped eventually and then all three of us, the woman in the car included, held our breath and got very still.

Talk about a spiritual communion.

But at the Wetlands it was more than the Holy Spirit, it was the Word of God.

The Word of God, present at Creation, responsible for Creation as God literally speaks the universe into existence, that same Word existed at the Wetlands.

Whenever I stood in the Wetlands as nature came to life, I felt that Word in my heart.  And that Word was “Wow!”

Some years ago, I was driving somewhere with my dad and he ran his fingertips across the top of my dash.  “What is this?” he asked, rubbing his fingers together.  “Dust?”

I laughed.  “That’s Wetlands dirt.”

“How is it in your car?”

It was in my car because I didn’t always walk the Wetlands.  There was a dirt road surrounding the Wetlands and sometimes I drove that road with the windows down and that Holy Spirit wind, that same hot wind I imagine that struck the disciples in the upper room on Pentecost—that same wind raced through my car and left physical evidence of its presence behind.

I realize that this sermon may now sound like I am preaching against getting your car washed or detailed.

But seriously, on this Trinity Sunday, where Jesus promises in Matthew 28:20 that He is with the disciples always, to the end of the age, I want you to recognize that God is with you always—that the presence of God is always within and without.

There were times at the Wetlands, I was held speechless, both lost and lifted in God’s creation moment.

There were times all I could do was breathe.

I hope that you have had moments like that.

I hope that when you are caught up in our stressful world, you have a place to go where you can feel God’s presence, the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. 

I hope that when your soul cries out in hunger for the presence of God that, at the very least, you can pause wherever you are at and breathe.

And remember this line from Job 33:4, “The Spirit of God has made me; the breath of God gives me life.”

Breathe.

Amen.