Feminist theologian Rebecca Button Pritchard describes how the Spirit accompanies our embodiment:
After hours of painful labor, of breathing deeply and quickly, a body comes from a body. Pain and hope, relief and anxiety spin together wildly as the tiny body, bloody, waxen, draws air into lungs and bellows. Tears of pain and joy flow together. The cord is cut; the child becomes a living, breathing soul. The grown-ups, who’ve been breathing on their own for many years now, are exhausted, delighted, relieved.
Inspiration, respiration, inhalation, exhalation, these are the evidence that a new life has begun. New birth is confirmed with a cry, the sound of air moving across vocal chords. Just so, embodied existence has begun for one of us, for all of us. The breath of life, the animating spirit, moves through the systems of bodies created in the image and likeness of God. New life breathes by the grace of God and depends on the grace of parents for sustenance and love.
Lungs, larynx, and lips give us the power to speak, to cry, to sing, to name, to praise, to pray…. “Let everything that breathes, praise the Lord,” sang the psalmist (150:6). The rush of God’s Spirit, mighty and creative, blows also across windpipes, forming words, language, speech. Finding a voice, speaking up, being heard into speech, these give our lives meaning and value, enabling us to make sense of things, including our lives as creatures related to God, to creation, to others, to self. Just so, the sound of God’s Spirit, the mighty wind of Pentecost, is the sound of human language, of being heard and understood. [1]
Recognizing how the Spirit lives, moves, and breathes in our bodies allows us to live a wholehearted, courageous faith:
True spirituality, embodied spirituality, may be described as wholeheartedness, as the integration of body and spirit, of nephesh and basar, of heart and soul. It is with this wholeheartedness that we hear and follow God’s voice; it is wholeheartedly that we find the words to cry out to God, to sing praise, to speak a prophetic word, a comforting word, to tell our stories, and to make sense of all our relationships.
Wholehearted spirituality in the freedom of the Spirit gives us courage, courage to bear witness to God’s grace against all odds, courage to speak despite efforts to silence us, courage to act authentically and in ways that encourage and empower the weak and the vulnerable. The Spirit gives us the wisdom to discern truthful moments, to bring both suspicion and trust to the interpretation of both past and present. [2]
References:
[1] Rebecca Button Pritchard, Sensing the Spirit: The Holy Spirit in Feminist Perspective (Chalice Press, 1999) 9–10.
[2] Pritchard, Sensing the Spirit, 29–30.
Image credit and inspiration: Arman Khadangan, untitled (detail), 2019, photo, Unsplash. Click here to enlarge image. The Holy Spirit kindles our inner fires: enlivening, inspiring, and sustaining all throughout time.
Story from Our Community:
It was a fear of hell that led me to be born again in a Pentecostal church, but being told I had to go out and “save” other people never sat right with me. If people’s salvation depended on me, the world is in a very sorry state. After reading many of Richard Rohr’s books, the Daily Meditations, and now The Universal Christ, I KNOW I don’t have to save people. I just have to love them! I am very grateful for the transformation within.
—Mandy G.
