Breathing on People

 Whenever a story is transformed into a new medium, whether written to audio, radio to TV, animation or live action, there is always translation happening—interpretation of meaning being conveyed.  The look an actor gives, the inflection of a certain word, the pauses, the pacing, the movement, the background.  All of these things come into play when transforming a story from one medium into another. 

Tom looking for birds by river

Have you ever seen the movie version of the book of John?  The casting and directing is well done and the movie itself is quite engaging.  One of the things the producers required was that the script be the exact words of the original written text with no additions or deletions. It was a commendable undertaking, but that doesn’t mean there wasn’t room for interpretation.  

While I think the producer/director did a marvelous job, there has always been one scene that I found quite odd, but it is more because the original written scene always struck me as odd.  Near the end, after the resurrection, it says, “And with that he breathed on them and said, ‘Receive the Holy Spirit.’”  What does that mean?  What did it look like?  Was it like blowing out the candles on a birthday cake?  Was it like Gandalf blowing smoke rings in Lord of the Rings?  I have no context for understanding what in the world is going on here.  Apparently, neither did the ones making the movie.  Th scene is awkward.  The main actor playing is standing in a circle with his followers.  He opens his mouth and looks each one in the eye as he quietly breathes out with his mouth open.  They show the face of each follower taking in this mysterious and solemn moment as if they are somehow experiencing a deep inner sensation.  It comes across weird and unnatural and I wondered how many takes they had to do.  It was probably the only part of the film I didn’t like.

A few days ago Muki and I came upon this scene in our reading.  As is our habit we read through the story twice, retold it in our own words and then asked the discussion questions.  The second question is, “Is there anything you don’t understand or have a question about?”  It’s amusing to me that Muki never answers this question—his answer is always, without fail.  “Nope, I understand all of it perfectly.”  Often once I ask some follow-up questions he realizes that he does have questions, but his first response is always, “Nope, no questions.”  Well this time I certainly had a question.  I pointed to that same verse, “‘And with that he breathed on them and said, ‘Receive the Holy Spirit.’ I asked Muki, “What is he talking about?  Isn’t that strange?”, expecting him to realize, as he often does, that maybe he hasn’t looked closely enough at the passage.  But instead he said to me, “That’s not strange at all.”

He then went on to explain to me, that it is actually very much a part of their culture for someone to breath on someone when they pronounce a blessing.  In fact, he gave me the example of a grandmother or grandfather saying a blessing over a child—a scene I’ve probably seen a hundred times here on the islands.  When children are blessed by their elders here the kids lay their hands one over the other and hold them out to the elder palm up and say “Kwezi.”  The elder then takes the hands in his/her own and pulls them up to the child's forehead.  Then holding the child’s hands in his/her own and resting them against the child’s head, he/she pronounces the blessings. At some point in the prayer they make a sort of a guttural “huh” sound as they call down blessings on the child. 

First mangoes of the season (say 'mango')

I hadn’t realized that the ‘huh’ was significant, but Muki explained that was actually them breathing on someone.  He explained that it is thought that since you are speaking the words of God then the very breath coming from your mouth is blessed and so the “huh” is actually pouring out your blessed breath on the child.  This scene I’ve seen played out a hundred times, I suddenly had new eyes to see it with.  They breathed the blessing over the child.  It wasn’t weird or strange or awkward.  It was a normal thing—and I’d seen it!  I love the fact that Muki and island culture has helped me see this anew.

 I don’t know if that moment thousands of years ago looked like a grandfather blessing his children, but I think I will forever picture now each disciple putting out his hands and saying “Kwezi” as the Lord came and blessed each one, placing their hands on their forehead and praying over him,“Huh, Receive the Holy Spirit. huh, huh.”

PRAYERS ANSWERED


Thankfully both our boys are feeling much better after their bouts of influenza— one spent 4 nights, the other 2 nights at the Student Health center. We are very thankful for their school’s Student Health team taking such good care of them and keeping us informed. Mtsa’s wife was able to be seen at a clinic and got the needed medicine. We had a nice visit from the couple and their little baby doing a vision trip on the islands. We are thankful for Tom’s 48 years as he celebrated his birthday this weekend. We are thankful that our colleague on the medical team led a successful training seminar for a large group of local midwives on caring for pre-mature infants. 

PRAYERS REQUESTED
We are in the process of planning a trip to the big island in a couple weeks in order to lead a team from the small island in their final debrief as their team finishes their 2 year program together. Pray for our preparations and for the team as they have their last couple weeks in their community, pack up and say goodbyes. We hope to use the time on the big island to also guide the resident team there through a time of reflection and evaluation— pray that the details of our travel and meeting times would fall into place. We had been waiting for one of the island brothers to come back from travels before we made some conclusions about meeting together more regularly as a larger group— as he is back this week, pray for clarity and unity about how to move forward. One of our colleagues on the small island lost her elderly father this weekend. Pray for her and her family as she prepares to go home for a time.