The Blessing

During the late hours of Sunday evening this last week, I prepared diligently for Monday's chapel service. For most chapels there is scripture, music, message, prayer and blessing. When it is my turn to give the message, I usually spend most of my time on the words I will speak to the four hundred students at Faith College. I must admit, rarely do I spend a lot of time thinking about the words of the music - I pick songs by necessity which, priority wise, go like this: songs the chapel band can play, songs the chapel band likes, songs that don't make me cover my ears and want to rock back and forth. I spend even less time, unfortunately, on the words I will say for the prayer and blessing and usually I simply hope that God will give me the right words at the right time: that's biblical, right?

As I looked through some understanding of the assigned scripture for me I was left with the daunting task to try and explain the Spirit to this group of thirteen to eighteen-year-olds. Many of them have not had a large amount of understanding with things Christian, much less spiritual, so I was left with the conundrum: do I try to explain, or do I try to help them experience. I went for experience.

Rob Bell is a popular Christian speaker probably most well known in Christian circles for his Nooma videos. The irony is that the word pneuma in Greek means 'spirit', 'wind' or 'breath.' I found one of the videos entitled 'Breath,' and Rob spoke eloquently and at length about breath and how life is breath. We need breath, obviously, but it was pointed out that most of us never quite get the large breaths that we need. Our bodies are designed to take roughly six breaths per minute. Our lungs have the capacity to hold enough oxygen to supply ninety-nine percent of the fuel that we need to energize our bodies (which would help us lessen our need to eat so much). We only use approximately twelve percent of our lungs and thus we stunt our ability to move in this world. If we could only breathe - and breathe deeper. If we could only fill our lungs; if we could only...

I invited the kids to breathe deeply, to experience the fullness of life coursing through their lungs. In and out they breathed silently (for the most part.) Then I invited them to think about Rob's other understanding in the video, Breath. He said that some theologians, who have contemplated the name of God - YHWH - would say that God's very name, not only unpronounceable because of its holiness, is simply the very breath of creation - the Spirit that hovered over the waters preparing to make the earth as it is. The letters in Hebrew, yod, heth, vav, heth, are full of air and breath. Some would say that it is God's name that keeps us alive; as we breathe in and out, it is God keeping us alive.

I noticed at this point that some of the students were really studying their breath deeply (some of them so deeply that their eyes were closed - the Spirit must have been speaking to them on a very different plane, I'm sure), so, I decided to wrap up the message and commend God's breath to them, God's new life to them.

Then, as is normal for chapel, we extended our time into prayer. Normally I would have one of the students come up to lead us in prayer, but because we were already past time (beautiful, isn't it - chapels determined by time - just like Sunday morning worship) I decided that I would lead the prayers for the day. The words came easily, I thought, and as I opened my eyes after the prayer, I invited one of the kids up to do the blessing. This young man, Luke, had been wanting to share the blessing with the rest of the students for quite a while. He was standing off to the side, smiling, excited - like a child who is about ready to deliver his Show and Tell. He moved quickly toward me (he had told me earlier in the day that he had been working on his blessing). I handed him the microphone and as soon as it hit his hand, this young ninth grader froze. It was as if he had been hit by a taser gun. His face locked into a grimace, his wide eyes imploringly searched mine and then he whispered, "I don't know what to say. Will you help me?"

I had just done such a nice job with the prayer I said out loud, "No problem, Luke," and so I said the words and he repeated them. After raising his hand to the congregation of his peers, as if casting his blessing far and wide over them, he repeated the words I spoke to him:

"Almighty God who hovered over the waters," Luke spoke these words clearly and surely, "will bless you this day and forever more." He was really getting into it now.

And that certainly was my demise...

"We implore you, God, to bless each one of us today with your life and..."

Here it comes, that moment which we wish we could take it back, the moment we replay in our minds hoping that we didn't actually say it...

"And we ask that you give us huge breaths today."

Luke looked at me after he said it aware that the snickering had started in the back. I looked up at the principal and she was trying desperately to not laugh. At first, I didn't get it, but if you read my statement above out loud, you will recognize that it sounded as if I was begging God to give us large, um, well, um... you know...

When it dawned on me what it had sounded like, I then said out loud (I wish it would have been an internal monologue) "Well, that didn't sound very good." The congregation of students began to laugh. After overcoming my embarrassment, I joined in the laughter, but it made me think once again,

Life is full of blessings. Just be careful which blessings you ask for.