The Divine Breath

I was leaving Costco the other day, when a checkout lady said to me, "We are in for more snow next week--have you heard that?"  I said facetiously--"Oh the retail stores put out their own weather reports to boost sales!"  For some reason, that one off-handed comment really made her laugh.  And as I was leaving the store, she was repeating it again.  "Listen to what I just heard..." and off she went. 

It reminded me of the Buddhist first commitment to do no harm, which starts with what we put into the air for others to breathe.  That's right--do we harm others by what we say and put into the air? Can we possibly restrain ourselves from the crap we say--so that others do not have to breathe it? 

That same afternoon, I was visiting a friend in the hospital.  I pulled up to parking space while a person pulled out.  Another car approached from the other lane, a good bit after I had been waiting.  As I pulled into the spot, the other drive sat on her horn and then she yelled an obscenity as whizzed past.  Talk about polluting the air!  Then I had to work with that first commitment not to repeat that story over and over to "pollute me" and then the people I was visiting. 

Seems to me that the breath God gave us in the Creation Story is what we are called to breathe back into world and other people to renew them as the souls they were created to be.  It's like the light breaking through the darkness of clouds and remembering that we were created to be the children of the Light of Christ...and we can do that with our words.