She crawled on her knees to blow out one hundred votive candles.

I do not know how it became her job.  How this young girl, maybe ten years old, was chosen to ritualize the death of Christ, to extinguish these lights in the sanctuary.  Perhaps “votive candle snuffer” was a task coveted by generations of children for years within this small urban church.  And like children before, when the moment came to remember the darkness of Good Friday, she was ready.   This thin child with a simple braid down her back slid from her seat and approached the lights that lined the floor around the altar.  On her knees she blew out each flicker.  It took her about three purposeful minutes to move around the circle.  She was met half way by a helper.   Together, on their knees, in a stealthy crawl, they assaulted each light until the gathering of people was in darkness.

This is the brutal truth of Holy Week.  A child is capable of extinguishing light.  A well directed puff can douse the flicker.

Six months ago Hurricane Maria ripped through Puerto Rico with gusts that still have U.S. citizens in darkness.   A wind coming in with the right angle and force can level a people.   We live in a world of hot air, of well-directed leveling blows.  Holy Week darkness becomes a way to ritualize the way that life is so quickly extinguished.  It all feels fragile.  We who carry the breath of life within our lungs are capable of snuffing out the breadth of life.  Like children blowing on candles it takes but a few puffs of tweets or bullets to darken a room and leave the crowds in fear.

In my day job, I teach young people to breathe.  I work with teens who are scared or sad.  Anxious and depressed.   In our therapy sessions, we breathe.  In.  Hold.  Out.  In. Hold.  Out.  Some of these young people have walked on their knees one hundred miles.  Panting for breath after incidents of horrific abuse.  Some of them have literally tried to extinguish their own breath.  Others simply hold their breath in fear.  Fearful for the world they are inheriting.  Fearful of their own potential to snuff out life.  I care for these young lives who know the leveling blows of Good Friday.  My prayer is that after they have known the scraped knee crawl of destruction, their lungs and spirits fill with breath that offers hope and renewal.  Breath from the Creator.

Those who adhere to the Christ story sit in darkness on Good Friday.  And still they sit on Saturday.  And then, as the story goes, at Sunday dawn, the morning breeze came.  The dead man without breath on Friday was resurrected.  On Sunday there is a restoration of things.  The winds of human hatred that once destroyed life are given a second chance.