Breath is the foundation for which the Lord God gives life.
“This is what the Sovereign Lord says: Look! I am going to put breath into you and make you live again!”
Sickness has plagued us from the beginning of time. It’s the reason why healing is such a key component of our sacred text. There has always been more than enough sickness to go around. But pandemics in particular have had a tremendous impact on the human story, accounting for an average of 400 million deaths over time.
Fannie Lou Hammer, survivors of the Tuskegee Study and Henrietta Lacks
The COVID-19 pandemic has been especially deadly for Americans, with more than 370,000 deaths in the United States, approximately 50,000 of which have been among Black Americans. A breathtaking statistic that gives renewed meaning to the phrase “I can’t breathe” at a time when Black people also have to contend with asphyxiation by police brutality.
And yet, we must breathe. Breath is the very essence of our existence, and the foundation for which the Lord God gives life. According to the prophet Ezekiel, “This is what the Sovereign Lord says: Look! I am going to put breath into you and make you live again!”
It’s divine reassurance that Black people desperately need at a time when inequity in healthcare has weaponized breath against us and stigmatized the medical advancements that should be for us. The design of historical medical abuse has been to keep Black folk leery of the solutions to the problems that impact us most, like COVID-19. Our divine right to breathe, especially in this COVID crisis, is contingent upon our liberation from the atrocities against Anarcha Westcott, and Henrietta Lacks, and Fannie Lou Hammer, and the 600 victims of the Tuskegee Study of Untreated Syphilis in the Negro male. But we must resist against misinformation, and misrepresentation, and miseducation with representation, and education, and information-sharing for us and by us.
The bad news is that more difficult days are ahead as the winter progresses. But, the good news is that our expectant waiting for the coming of better days is almost over. New leadership that prioritizes people over politics is coming. A safe and viable vaccine, scrutinized by the world’s foremost experts, is here. A diverse array of community stakeholders, including faith leaders, are being engaged at every step of the process. And, we celebrate the birth of a newborn Savior!
In the meantime, we must continue to take every precaution available to us to keep us safe. That means adhering to the four Ws: wearing our masks, watching our distance, washing our hands, and worshipping virtually.
If COVID-19 and pandemics have taught us anything, it’s that we are all connected, whether by our shared humanity, or globalization and technology, or by faith. In the same way, our current moment of dis-ease is being experienced together, and so must our healing. With your prayers, I know we’ll get there. It may be six months from now or another year even — but we will win. And with any luck and a lot of faith, we will emerge from this crisis better than how we went in.
“Let everything that has breath praise the Lord. Praise the Lord.”