Not breathing

"Breathe."    It's a phrase that has become synonymous with being present, slowing down, paying attention.   It's often touted as the portal to the Holy.    But today, it was my NOT breathing that ushered me into Presence.

Today was another Ordinary day at Malachi's Storehouse.    We scored 75 CASES of  free diapers from the Atlanta Community Food Bank to give away to low-income moms and dads.  We gave away a rich, gorgeous crib and all the accoutrements to a family who didn't have the resources to buy such 'luxuries'.   These gifts were "magically" donated by an MSH advocate who heard about the family in need.  We met the affable driver from the Atlanta Community Food Bank at the Storehouse and stocked the freezer with meat we bought for 16 cents a pound which we will joyfully and communally give away on Wednesday.   All these things, I am embarrassed to report, I took in relative immune stride.  Just another Ordinary day.   Until.

I was meandering through the halls and stumbled upon a meeting of the retired school teachers who were planning the Explorer's Camp that will be held at St. Pat's this summer which will include our Malachi's kids.  I poked my head in to say 'hello' and 'thanks' and and ask them if they needed anything from us, hoping against hope they'd say 'no'.    I told them about a boy who came bursting into MSH last Wednesday heading straight for their reading room.  He was blowing past us as he announced rather ebulliently, "I wanna go to the library!!!!"

A handful of retired school teachers and some committed others have created and resourced Malachi Reads (aka Malachi's StorYhouse )   Each week. they methodically set up little chairs and tables and read to our client's children while the moms and dads wait for their groceries.   Each week, each child takes home a book that they may call their own.   Simply put, the kids LOVE it.   As I was finishing my story about the  boy, one of the ladies offered, "Oh, I bet that's the little boy who puts books up his shirt to get to take home more than one!"    I felt myself stop breathing. 

At MSH, we talk a lot about meeting desperation with grace.    We volunteer because we've all felt some kind of desperation for something or more to the point someOne.   Some of us volunteer because we are desperate to find meaning in our lives or we are desperate to find community and connection.  Some of us are there because we are desperate to practice gratitude.  And then,  some of us are desperate for books.   I listened to those ladies speak graciously about the little boy who was clever, who was so 'out there' with his vulnerability and desperation, who just wanted chapter books to show to his friends how studious he was.   I heard their care and Love and graciousness towards him  and slowly I began to breathe again.   

I could breathe because I remembered  that it is in my moments of desperation that God, in all of God's costumes,  meets me with graciousness or  books or chicken or a crib.   I remembered that the Meeting of God comes sometimes quickly and sometimes slowly;  but it always comes.   I remembered that I belong to a community of faith that allows for both the ordinarily desperate and the continually Breathtaking.   And I could breathe.