The Breath of God

It was in Jamaica that I came to truly understand the wind as the breath of God. The seeds were sown a year previously by an older Jamaican woman preaching in church and reminding us to be mindful of God's caring presence. She said that when we are outside and it is so hot, and we feel that cooling breeze on the back of our neck, that is the breath of God. Jamaica is very hot in July, when I am there, even up in the mountains. The wind blows often, and even the wind is hot. But the wind is welcome and blessed relief, even when it is hot. It lifts sweaty strands of hair from my neck, like the soft hand of someone who loves me, and sends fresh air to me there.

I travel to an orphanage in Jamaica every July. It is far up in the mountains, far away from any place tourists visit. We are usually the only white people up there. The people in that area are traditional and conservative in their manners and their outlook. No dreadlocks, no talks of Rasta, very little reggae. In fact, they look askance at Rastafarians, as if they are people to be avoided. (The orphanage director once explained to me that her dogs, all 11 of them, never even barked at the Rastafarian man doing construction on the main building, and she wondered at that, thinking maybe he was an okay guy.) These mountain people are people of faith, people who have not had much and who work hard for what they do have. They get up early and work long days into the night and they know how to pace themselves. Even the elders among them work hard, and it is difficult to discern the true age of most of them.

Before I traveled to Jamaica this year, I was worried. Quite worried. So much so I had not been sleeping well for a month before the trip, though I did not realize that was the reason at the time. (Only after I got home again, and could sleep, did I understand.) The depression had been riding me for a full year, at least. It had dogged my every movement on the previous year's trip, and I knew I was now held firmly between its jaws. I worried about that, about how I would be able to function in a group of people where it is hard to hide our shortcomings, in a place where the heat brings out what we might wish to hide away inside. There's no faking it in Jamaica--even the natives i have encountered there are direct in their responses. And since this was my third trip, some of the people traveling with us had traveled with me before, and so, they knew me. They knew me in the context of the Jamaica mission trip, what I was capable of, and what they could count on me for. They knew when I was angry at the arrogance and judgmental attitude of a new traveler, and was trying to hide it with polite sounding words.

(Mission trip. I know the images those words evoke. Forget them. The people we stay with in Jamaica are better Christians than I am. They know their Scripture by heart, and they know their hymns. We go there to sing and play and do craft projects with the children, and to assist in construction projects.)

One night, at our end-of-the-day wrap-up session, the aforementioned new traveler began to question our motives on this trip, and to complain it was not 'spiritual' enough. He challenged us, wondering why we were all here. His sneering tone, along with his refusal to participate in some of the activities, angered me, and I responded to his challenge. I laid open the facts of my life. I told him I am nobody. I explained how I live below the poverty level and raise my daughter alone, how I have known abuse and abandonment in my life. I explained that I understand how some of these children feel, being abandoned and abused themselves. I come on this trip, I told him, with fire in my eyes, to simply be with these kids, to love them and listen to them and let them know someone hears them, someone sees them, someone appreciates them. I said that, and more, and at the end of the meeting, I turned to flee from the room in tears, because I had exposed my vulnerability to a judgmental stranger and I was afraid.

But the group leader caught my arm just as I was leaving, and she held me and whispered in my ear, "Don't ever say that you are nobody."

And she cried, and I cried, and then I ran into my room and hid.

The next morning, I went out early. There weren't many people around. I walked down to the playground and climbed up the tallest piece of equipment there, and sat facing into the wind. I began my morning prayer, and I talked earnestly to God about my fears and about how paralyzed and turned to stone I had felt because of the depression. I sang. The wind caressed my face, lifted my hair, soothed and smoothed my ragged edges. And I heard the voice of spirit say to me, "God fills all your empty spaces. You are not alone. You are not nobody. You are not without. God fills all your empty spaces."

I cried some more. I felt the wind. I knew it truly as the breath of God, breathing love and life into me.

Until next time, I remain, your friend, Rozenkraai