It isn't often that I think about breathing.
The precursors are irrelevant, as it becomes evident that the feet are no longer on the ground, assuming a position that is undoubtedly foreign. As the disorientation and panic envelop limited cognizance, the moment becomes an eternity. Gravity whips strangling belts around the body, jerking it from the pause in space back down to the earth. Time exists again, but the seconds are agonizing as the air has been ejected from your lungs. Pain becomes strangely transient when one has the awareness that breathing has ceased. The air has disappeared. You're convinced the air has disappeared. I'm certain the air has disappeared.
And there is that instance. The instance that composure, the same as the body, suffocates. It is to the frenzied appeal of surrender that the mind whirls about to face. Seemingly unbearable, this vacuum of torture. Surrender, is the plea, but it is without conviction. The disarray's deceit derided the diaphragm, but defeat isn't definite. The muscle is resurrected, and as air is inhaled, the feeling of suffocating once again becomes foreign. I was momentarily aware of breathing, notably due to its unpleasant absence. No need to think about breathing once again.
But a couple deep breaths help me appreciate the fact that the air never really disappeared. I just couldn't get to it.
As I prepare to begin my summer vacation, I am still catching my breath. Whether through carelessness, or veiled truculence, or maybe even through subscribing to obstinacy, my feet have found themselves in the orientation far too often. And I hit the ground, panic, slowly catch my breath, and once again resume NOT thinking about breathing. But, it seems, that I don't have enough time to catch my breath before a thunderous clap steals the air.
Mohammed is every bit as stubborn as I am. And it is the last week of summer school. I have planned accordingly, knowing that it is better to just designate relaxation and fun activities. The week begins, and it becomes immediately evident that he simply no longer cares. His communication skills evaporate in the heat of apathy. Self-help skills are trampled by the allure of learned helplessness. Cooperation becomes a most vile, abhorrent concept.
I taught him how to light a match, and start the gas stove, and it is his responsibility to prepare his own breakfast. He takes some bread from the freezer, lights the stove, and begins warming up the bread. Then, in the manner and mindset of a mischievous miscreant, he decides that today he is just going to let the bread burn. I watch him in disbelief, noting that he takes the bread off the stove to see if it is burning, which he followed with tossing it back on the stove. Finally, I just ask him, "What are you doing?", which startles him a bit as he realizes that I was watching. Knowing that he's caught, he simply remarks that the bread is now bad and should go in the trash. Nope. As I elaborate about his misbehavior, he tunes out until I tell him to go ahead and eat the bread that he cooked. Burnt portions and all. After he's done, we run into similar problems and I end up sending him to a timeout.
Again. And again. First, it's standing in isolation. Then, push-ups. Then standing while holding a chair. Then, a slap on the back of the hand, and a verbal warning about how angry I am with him for being so lazy and uncooperative. More time-out. He tells me he's done with school, he just wants to be punished and then go home. I oblige him, not holding back my displeasure but simultaneously being perplexed as to what I can actually do.
I don't know what to do. For that last week, everyday was filled with thunderous claps that stole my breath. And as I panic. As I turn to plead for surrender to just bestow apathy upon me, I instead lose awareness of my lack of breath. I clench my teeth, and my suffocating urgency is reflected in my teaching. I look at Mohammed, and he is hating being at school. Hating working with me. And my bitterness wants reprisal: If you want to be as stubborn as me, this will be a horrible week. And it was. So terrible, in fact, that upon the release, all that I could catch was stagnant air.
Jonah knew a little bit about stagnant air. Hanging out inside a fish for 3 days (I bet you aren't familiar with fish breath). Chilling under the shade of a vine, fantasizing about fire and brimstone raining down upon Nineveh, only to watch the vine wither as the sun was bearing down upon him and the dry air choked his lungs. His bitterness wanted reprisal, every bit as much as mine does, but for Jonah suffocating might have seemed a decent alternative to breathing.
And here I am, and although I did not hesitate to embark on my journey, I certainly have embodied Jonah's bitterness. I want God to bring down an army of enforcers. At the very least, a grandma of drill-sergeant caliber who would whip Mohammed into shape. But I am more ambitious than Jonah, and I want to even take holy retribution into my hands. And this is why I can't breathe.
God taps me on the shoulder. The vine is withering, and the air is stagnant. I am catching my breath. Jesus is the model to follow, not the misguided and suffocated path of Jonah. Jesus implores that I follow him first, but Jesus didn't teach the deafblind. He copped out and healed the blind and the deaf. I'm pretty good, but not that good. So what am I supposed to do?
Jesus changes the dynamic. It isn't a matter of what, but how. He came to inform, and to correct, but to love and to forgive first. That is the model of how. Through his grace, his forgiveness, I have a new breath. I can finally catch my breath. It is only through foolishness that I turn from that, to continually fall and take in the stagnant air of bitterness. Lord, help me turn to your grace and forgiveness, so that when I fall, you can breathe life into me. So that when air disappears, you can breathe life into me.
With that renewed life, I am certain I'll be a better teacher, and now I have summer vacation to prepare for that. Summer vacation is an opportunity to think about breathing. I want to think about breathing more often. Peace.
