In the languages of the bible, the predominant image for spirit is wind. In both Hebrew and Greek, the word that is most often translated as “spirit” in English is a word that can also be used to describe wind and air. In Hebrew the word is “ruah.” It is “pneuma” in Greek. We use the Greek word “pneumatic” in English to describe tools that are powered by air pressure. There is another Greek word, used primarily in the Gospel of John, which means “advocate” or “counselor,” but the dominant image is that of wind.

It makes sense. You can’t see the wind, but you can see its effects. Trees move. Dust flies. Wind has power to create a lot of damage. It also refreshes and clears out smoky and unclean air.

In the history of modern medicine, there are three phases of distinguishing life from death. The most ancient is the breath test. A being who is breathing is alive. One who does not breathe is dead. Physicians used to place their ear next to the nose or mouth of an unconscious person to determine whether or not that person was breathing. A mirror was also used, knowing that the moisture in the breath would condense on cold metal or glass. Later, the primary test moved to circulation. Is there a pulse? Medical responders were trained to feel for a pulse in the major arteries of the body. CPR - the technique for resuscitating a person who has stopped breathing - focuses on both the breath and the circulation by blowing air into the lungs and compressing the chest to start the pumping action of the heart. In modern medicine, the use of a series of tests to determine brain activity - primarily measures of electrical activity in the brain - are used to determine life and death. Breathing and circulation can be maintained artificially for long periods of time, but doctors know of no way to restart brain activity once it has ceased.

From ancient times, the difference between life and death has been a mystery. We know the difference - we feel the presence or absence of the spirit of the individual. We know that there is more to life than simply having a body - and that there is more to the ones we love than physical presence. This understanding has led to an imperfect understanding of what it means to be alive. Arising out of the Greek culture there was a dual view of humans - of body and spirit - sometimes called body and soul. Of course we know that the image of body and soul is not complete. We aren’t simply two parts that can be separated, with the body decomposing after death and the soul going on to a new independent, but distinctive life. Complex thoughts like the nature of life itself sometimes require that we break them down and think of them in ways that we can grasp. The duality of human existence has persisted for millennia and dualistic language is common in human funeral services.

Today, on Pentecost, we celebrate the presence of the spirit in slightly more complex ways of thinking. The reports of the first Pentecost in Acts describe a scene that is clearly beyond the power of language to describe. The writer uses simile to describe the scene: “a sound like the rush of a violent wind;” “divided tongues, as of fire.” We know the words aren’t perfect descriptions, but ways to stir our imaginations to capture a bit of that early experience. Growing out of those descriptions, the church has used images of flames and fire to describe the movement of the spirit in our midst. Fire with its dancing and difficult to predict behavior provides a visual image to consider when thinking of the spirit.

Today, as I awake, I was thinking of the spirit in a different way, however. I was listening to the sound of rainfall on the roof and the flow of water through the downspout next to our bedroom and reflecting on what a blessing rain is for our hills. Just a few weeks ago the ground was parched and dry. A blizzard and several rainy days have refreshed the ground. The grass is green, the perennial plants are poking up from the soil, and the appearance and mood of the hills have been transformed. The rain refreshes and renews this place we call home.

We know of the potential for destructive power that water possesses. Even those of us who were living elsewhere during the 1972 flood know story upon story of the destructive power of flash flooding in the hills. I am sure that out in the valley there are places where the creeks are overwhelming their banks and it is likely that there are a few wet basements in the neighborhoods. Water, when it goes places where we don’t want it, can be very destructive.

But we can’t live without water. In fact we are mostly water. The fluid dynamics of a human body are amazing with our cell walls holding fluid within and arteries and veins to transport fluids containing nutrition to our bodies and fluids containing contaminants out of our bodies. Our life is a process of the exchange of fluid. It might even be said that we flow through life.

In a pre-scientific era, before we used such words to describe what we saw, the ancients were aware of the dynamics of wind and water. Depending on the translation, the first or second sentence of the Bible speaks of “a wind from God swept over the face of the waters.” The word is “ruah.” The wind is spirit and the waters were the element from which all creation came forth.

Like the ancients, our words fail us when we try to talk about the essence of life. But we understand that spirit is a life-force and a reality that exists even when we are unable to describe it.

May you feel the movement of the spirit in your life today.

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