Pentecost is the celebration of the liberating breath of God. We sing words like, “Breathe on us breath of God.”
I can breathe now
I can’t breathe. I can’t breathe. These were the last words of George Floyd as he lay dying in front of a number of people and now in front of the world.
Perhaps what we have been hearing during this time of pandemic is a voice, a new mantra being spoken by so many in this world. “I can’t breathe.” And along with that outcry goes the added, “Can’t you hear me? Can’t you hear us?”
So many writers have spoken about how the pandemic is revealing all the fault lines in our world…the fault lines of poverty, of race, of the earth being treated as a commodity. Perhaps the mantra of it all has been given to us by George Floyd, “I can’t breathe.” We can hear those living in poverty saying, “I can’t breathe.” Indigenous peoples in Canada, “I can’t breathe.” The over 400,000 people who have died globally in part because human beings did not believe in the possibility of such a destructive virus also were saying, “I can’t breathe.” Our planet being choked by human activity, “I can’t breathe.” And perhaps when we hold ourselves as powerless, “I can’t breathe.” For, after all, one can only hold one’s breath for so long.
The story of the pandemic, the story of racism in Canada, and beyond, the story of us is still unfolding…and the Pentecost story again shakes us into participating in a way that we might do the hard, searing, and transformative work of ushering in a new mantra:
I can breathe…I can breathe…I can breathe.
-Sister Margo Ritchie, csj