The Answer Really Is "Blowing In The Wind"

While getting ready to set out some tomato plants this week I ran across the following instruction in an online site, "Tomato plants need to move and sway in the breeze to develop strong stems. That happens naturally outdoors, but if you start your seedlings inside, you need to provide some type of air circulation. Create a breeze by turning a fan on them for five to 10 minutes, twice a day."

This got me thinking about how vital wind is to our existence. Without it, I'm told, humidity and temperatures would be extremely high in some places and extremely low in others, and we would not experience the kinds of vital seasonal changes that maintain life on the planet as we know it.  Also, a lot of the pollination necessary for growing fruit and other foods relies on wind.  Our survival depends on it.

Wind can be a terribly destructive force, especially as driven by global warming, but is also a source of amazing beauty and wonder, as in this reflection by Barry Lopez on the view along the Charley River in eastern Alaska:

What is stunning about the river's banks on this particular stormy afternoon is not the vegetation (the willow, alder, birch, black cottonwood, and spruce are common enough) but its presentation. The wind, like some energetic dealer in rare fabrics, folds back branches and ruffles the underside of leaves to show the pattern--the shorter willows forward, the birch taller, set farther back in the hills. The soft green furze of budding alder heightens the contrast between gray-green willow stems and white birch bark. All of it is rhythmic in the wind, each species bending as its diameter, its surface areas, the strength of its fibers dictate. Behind this, a backdrop of hills: open country recovering from an old fire, dark islands of spruce in an ocean of labrador tea, lowbrush cranberry, firewood, and wild primrose, each species of leaf the invention of a different green: lime, moss, forest, jade. This is not to mention the steel gray of clouds, the balmy arctic temperature, our clear suspension in the canoe over the stony floor of the river, the ground-in dirt of my hands, the flutelike notes of a Swainson's thrush, or anything else that informs the scene.      -from Crossing Open Ground (New York: Scribners, 1988)

In the Hebrew "hymn of creation" in Genesis 1, God's Spirit ("ruah"/wind) hovers over the water covering the earth and breathes life into the planet. And after forming a human from common clay, this same Ruach breathes life into what becomes a living soul, a full-fledged person reflecting God's image and spirit.

In the words of Job, "The Spirit (ruah) of God has made me, and the breath of the Almighty gives me life."

Christians all over the world will celebrate Pentecost Sunday next week, a day when the wind of heaven again swept over the earth.  According to Acts 2, "Without warning there was a sound like a strong wind, gale force--no one could tell where it came from. It filled the whole building. Then, like wildfire, the Holy Spirit spread through their ranks, and they started speaking in a number of different languages as the Spirit prompted them."

Thus began an inclusive, worldwide movement that brought together people of all nations, cultures, social classes and languages into a caring community in which "there was not a needy person among them."

In the words of Brian McLaren, "Before Christianity was a rich and powerful religion, before it was associated with buildings, budgets, crusades, colonialism or televangelism, it began as a revolutionary non-violent movement promoting a new kind of aliveness on the margins of society."

That kind of radical God-movement can only result from a strong, heaven-sent Wind.