It is well-known that “Aloha” is the Hawaiian word for “hello” and “goodbye.” It is also their word for love and friendship. As someone who thinks quite a bit about the biblical understanding of “spirit,” I was interested to learn that “Aloha” conveyed a spiritual idea that could be illuminated by its two root words. “Alo” is the word for presence (or face). And “Ha” is the word for the “breath of life” or the “spirit.” Scholars will warn us that it is typically bad form to determine meaning from root words. “Butterfly” for instance is not understood by its components. But in the case of “Aloha,” so I am told by natives, the root words do capture the spirit of the term. It speaks of the intimacy of friendship and love when people are so closely in each other’s presence that the breath of one person becomes the air the other breathes. Aloha entails the intimacy of sharing our air between loved ones or, if they are apart, it expresses the longing for physical reunion and the sharing of our air once more.
Aloha speaks of the intimacy of friendship and love when people are so closely in each other’s presence that the breath of one person becomes the air the other breathes.
This December, as we now head into our second official stay-at-home order during the Covid Pandemic of 2020, I am sorely reminded that it is precisely the “sharing of our air” that we are deprived from when it comes to our separation from friends and loved ones. In fact, “Don’t Share Your Air” has become a catchphrase of sorts for how to maintain distance and reduce the number of cases contracting the novel disease.
The Virtual is not the Spiritual
For many churches in particular, the lockdowns have felt like they have gone on for an unbearably long time. Online services, as valuable as a resource as they have been, bring the constant reminder that the “virtual” is most certainly not the “spiritual.” Spiritual, after all, does not mean non-physical or virtual in Scripture (as some commonly suppose). Scripture teaches us that the spirit joins believers together into a “body” (1 Cor 12:13). Being “filled with the Spirit” is not a matter of private meditation or immaterial reflection, but is a matter of embodied singing, mutual encouraging, and giving thanks with each other (Eph 5:18–19; 1 Cor 14:26). The church receives “spiritual bread” and “spiritual drink” in embodied rituals that enable members to participate in a distinct fellowship with Christ (1 Cor 10:3, 16–17).
Far from a wispy, immaterial force, the Spirit works with a body–the body of believers who are joined together in Christ.
Can the Spirit still work in churches whose members are remotely strung together by broadband connections? Yes, of course: God’s Spirit-presence is now “neither on this mountain nor just in Jerusalem,” but rather worship in Spirit and truth can be observed in any locality (John 4:21, 24). But the ability of the Spirit to fill us in power is diminished in settings where we are apart from one another. Its diminution is not unlike heat traveling through wood or electricity moving through rubber. While the Spirit can always ever work in the hearts of God’s people, the elements of virtual services are simply not conducive for the Spirit to powerfully move among the body. Fullness of the Spirit is a matter of nearness and proximity — as a gatherer and joiner, the epicenters and conductors of the Spirit’s activity are in the very places where his people gather together bodily in fellowship. Rather than a wispy, immaterial force, the Spirit works with a body–the body of believers who are united together in Christ.
And so we wait. Not just for the time when we can finally embrace one another and share our air in the presence of the friends and loved ones we’ve been separated from. But we also wait for the Spirit himself to breathe new life into our churches—an outpouring of which many of us have gone far too long without.
I borrowed a ukulele from a friend right at the beginning of lockdown and it has been with me constantly during the long months. When I pick it up, the song I often play out of instinct is Aloha ‘Oe. I used to think it was because I lack imagination (partly true). But I’m beginning to realize I also reach for it because the song captures well the spirit of the times.
Aloha ʻoe, aloha ʻoe
E ke onaona noho i ka lipo
One fond embrace,
A hoʻi aʻe au
Until we meet again
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