This morning I heard the Johannine born again in a new way. Of water and Spirit speaks to me of the wind of G-d moving across the face of the deep in Genesis verse 2. This primal meeting is what brings forth persons and worlds, and so we are invited to meet again, from the beginningness of time, the breath. Breath in the middle eastern cultures is the way we know someone–we get close enough to feel their breath: this is meeting. G-d’s breath, G-d’s very essence, Spirit, is known in such meetings. Meeting by its nature is not held in the hand but touches it. We must continually renew our touching and being touched, our exchanging of breaths. In this way we give life to one another. G-d gives breath and life to us, yes, somehow we give breath and life to G-d. We affect each other. We are changed by the meeting, we are born, our persons, our essences are formed and transformed, by meeting. So being born again is a continual process, a forever turning again to meet, to touch, each other. We cannot hold, we can only continue. We can only do, we can only love. I hear a call, a knocking, to open, to meet, to touch, to love. Our faces move near to each other, near enough to feel the breath.
Be born again–meet and in that meeting be brought forth a new person. Dare to die to whomever you were, for whom you were dreamed in the first dream, the first breath, is larger still. Shed the cocoon, struggle out with wings wet and meet. Meet G-d in your breath.
Lord, I am seeing that meeting you is the essential thing. Those who think they own others and can control how they meet you miss the essential quality of the meeting: breath to breath.
:- Doug.
