Water and Spirit

Nicodemus said to him, “How can anyone be born after having grown old? Can one enter a second time into the mother’s womb and be born?” Jesus answered, “Very truly, I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God without being born of water and Spirit. What is born of the flesh is flesh, and what is born of the Spirit is spirit. Do not be astonished that I said to you, ‘You must be born from above.’ The wind blows where it chooses, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.” 

John 3:4-8

Breathing in, I am born. Breathing out, I die. What I think of as my first breath was not the first breath. What I call my last breath will be followed by so many more in breaths and out breaths: births and deaths; water and spirit.

My friend is dying. That happens more and more as I grow older. You would think you'd get used to it. I don't. Each death is like an amputation. "Ask not for whom the bell tolls," right? When one of us dies, we all die.

Will she end? Will she be gone from existence? Of course not! Our bodies are returned to the earth and air from which we came. We are once again water and spirit to become new breath, new lives, new births. The love we received lives on in the lives of our beloved ones. Mark Antony was only half right: "The evil that men do lives after them," yes, but the good is not "interred with their bones," It lives. The River of Life flows on.

My friend will die soon. Her life with cancer will be transformed into something new. Her suffering will end. We who shared her life will suffer for what we've lost. Her smile. Her voice. Her company. But we will not die. Not yet. We will live and her love, her goodness, even her body and breath will live in us. Water and spirit. Earth and breath.

I don't know what the Kingdom of God is. I used to know. Like the Prophet Dylan, "I was so much older then. I'm younger than that now." But I have a sense, an inkling that the Kingdom that is not of this world is something like a river that flows forever. In the Kingdom of God we are all swimmers in waters where we breath and move and have our being. My breath becomes yours. My body becomes yours.

Once Jesus was asked by the Pharisees when the kingdom of God was coming, and he answered, “The kingdom of God is not coming with things that can be observed, nor will they say, ‘Look, here it is!’ or ‘There it is!’ For, in fact, the kingdom of God is among you.”

Luke 17: 20-21

When my friend has died, has breathed her "last breath," she will remain in the Kingdom of God with all of us. We will look to the earth and say, "this is her body." We will breath from the air and say, "this is her spirit." We will love one another as she loved us. And the River of Life will flow. The Kingdom of God will endure among us.

Breathing in, I am born.

Breathing out, I die.

I love you, sweet friend. Thank you for living. Thank you for your life.