Pneumatophores of God's Spirit

I learned a new word this week in my class on the desert mothers: pneumatophore. Plants that dwell in waterlogged or tightly compacted soil and thus are oxygen deprived develop pneumatophores, that is, specialized “breathing roots” that rise above the water or soil so the plant can literally breathe.

What does that have to do with the desert mothers? When worldly cares and concerns threaten to choke the breath of God out of us, wisdom figures rise above all that crushes the spirit, enabling them to take in God’s love and breathe it into the rest of us until we, too, can rise up to become pneumatophores for others.

The desert mothers and other wisdom figures use humility, simplicity, silence, solitude, and prayer to rise above the greed, pride, ambition, and selfishness that cuts us off from the breath of God. When we are feeling breathless because our false self is sucking God’s spirit out of us, let us turn to the wise women and men who can enspirit us, whether they lived in the deserts of Egypt in the fourth century or are in our very midst today. With their help, we too can rise above all that leaves us gasping for inspiration and become pneumatophores of God’s indwelling spirit.