There’s something about the air – it’s there but it’s not there – at least the eye cannot embrace it unless there are particles moving with it – like sand, leaves, raindrops, snow, bullets. Does it hold us up, does it give us strength – like soldiers in a desert windstorm, does the air and wind exercise our strength and give us more confidence that, yes, we can survive, we can win? Of course, that’s not possible (nor feasible), in severe song, when the wind is so strong as to whistle and drum, when whirlwinds, tornados, hurricanes bend man’s work to the ground and scrambles structures as if they were toys, legos, ice cream cones, light stuff, and we must find a safety spot, so the wind doesn’t see us, its fingers picking us out of the hole and hurling us into an oak trunk or light pole torn from its grounding. Air was re-defined that day, that sunny morning, when the dust and particles of the Twin Towers, mixed into a thick soup of exploded airplanes, steel, concrete puffs,  human bodies, with no song to give it meaning, no wall to stop the air from crying out as it dispersed into the skies above, ripping all hope into shreds as well. Yet, some days the air becomes so still even the river currents seem stopped, nothing really progresses or regresses, but silent barges, blocks long, skimming along, noiseless from behind my windows that block all sound but  the modern blight — boom boxes and sirens.

Imagine all the technological waves that vibrate through our air – digital, radio, television, Facebook fotos and tweets, email, and bug sprays and sprays of beer popped open – invading, reducing our oxygen space – hot air, evil air, praise air, air filled with spit and sweat, poetic eulogies of death, shouts of cheers, tornado whistles and hurricanes that stir angry winds. Some of us take up more air than others, some who breathe deeply, others who gasp for what little air seeps into their lungs. And think of the coughs, sneezes, the burps and shouters – the haters ,the cheerers, the singers, the gymnasts, those who pass gas, and those who make concoctions of herbs and flavors that chop off the air we breathe, giving it an odor that can be agreeable or not, a thick bacon or light lemongrass scent, and yet it takes place in our air – the air that is supposed to comfort our lungs and keep us alive. The air God used to make water, light and man. The same air, always, breathed by those who walked here before us. This is why going to Jerusalem is tiptoeing on a miracle – we can breathe the same air Jesus breathed 2000 years ago. I wonder if it refreshes my spirit.