Who Can't Breathe? Three Outcries and a Prayer, by Rabbi Arthur Waskow (the Shalom Center 2021)

Categories: Ecotastrophes, Epidemics & Pandemics, Hateful Intolerance, Prejudice, and Bigotry

Tags: 2020 coronavirus pandemic, 2020 United States racial reckoning, 21st century C.E., 58th century A.M., English vernacular prayer, paraliturgical elohai neshamah, paraliturgical nishmat kol ḥai, Prayers as poems, September 2020 Western United States wildfires, State v. Chauvin, אלהי נשמה Elohai neshamah

Excerpt: A prayer-poem by Rabbi Arthur Waskow in 2021 reflecting on our difficulty breathing, as a society, as humanity, and as a interconnected, interbreathing biosphere. . . .

Content:

In Memory of George Floyd and Thousands More Since 1619.

Contribute a translation	Source (English)
	I. I Can’t Breathe Again and again, With gun or choke-hold. Police have stolen the breath of Black Americans. The police are not merely police For they hold a national authority To use violence on behalf of the nation: To serve us all, protect us all. When they subjugate the Black community They implicate us all, They make us all Subjugators And they subjugate us all. But their misdeeds have stirred A great Uprising against racism. We will let no ruler pretend The protest is the danger.
	II. We Can’t Breathe All humanity is choking From a virus that invades our lungs. We have left no space for other species And the virus leaps into our lives. If our rulers minimize the danger It becomes still worse Choking our societies, our jobs, our businesses, Our democracy. Our lives.
	III. Earth Can’t Breathe All life on Earth depends on Interbreathing. We breathe in what the trees breathe out; The trees breathe in what we breathe out. Our Interbreathing is the Breath that keeps all Earth alive. Our Interbreathing is the very Name we call You, For YyyyHhhhWwwwHhhh Is the still small voice of simply breathing. But the Flood of CO₂ That we call the “climate crisis” Chokes our breathing. Chokes Your Breathing, All Earth is scorched by burning fossil fuels And Carbon Pharaohs burn their way to faster wealth. Earth can’t breathe and Your Name rattles in our throats.
	IV. A Prayer and a Response You Who are the Breath of Life, At Sinai You taught us, Not to take My Name with an empty heart. Not to breathe My Name with empty Spirit. Every breath we take is Itself Your Name, Part of that great Breath that is the Holy One. You Who are the Breath of Life, Heal us to breathe.
	I Speak I Who free you from choking In the Tight and Narrow Place: I Who send you Broad Spaces Where My breath, My wind, blows free: No one shall rob you of My Name, My Breath, My Holy Spirit. Embody Me!

“Who Can’t Breathe? Three Outcries and a Prayer” by Rabbi Arthur Waskow (2021) was first published on the website of the Shalom Center on 20 April 2021. The prayer is an extension of his prayer “I can’t breathe, we can’t breathe, Earth can’t breath” first published by Arthur Waskow on 27 July 2020.

I. I Can’t Breathe

II. We Can’t Breathe

III. Earth Can’t Breathe

IV. A Prayer and a Response