Airplanes and Athanasius: Choosing the Right Oxygen Mask

There is a common illustration for self care based upon an oxygen mask on an airline flight. The main message is that you have to take care of yourself before you can take care of others. Dr. Albert Rossi uses the illustration at the beginning of his beautiful book Becoming a Healing Presence. He writes:

Today, I would like to reflect on this metaphor and add to it. The Bible and also many saints describe going through life spiritually asleep or almost hypnotized. In regard to self care, it seems like one oxygen mask drops down in front of us, but I think if we are trying to be spiritually awake, we will see that there are actually two masks. 

The first mask is based upon meeting our needs through our sinful passions. There is an acronym for our passions, which is PALE GAS, and it is so easy to try to breathe in the pale gas to meet our needs. Those letters stand for Pride, Anger, Lust, Envy, Greed, Avarice, and Sloth.  

The second mask is based upon meeting our needs through communion with God. The message of Orthodox Christianity is that we were created for union with God right now. The first breath Adam took in the Garden of Eden was the breath of God, and the next breath you take is meant to be that too.  

A few weeks ago we commemorated St. Athanasius the Great, and we can look way back in his teachings to find this same message. He teaches that God created us so that we “might rejoice and have fellowship with the Deity, living the life of immortality unharmed and truly blessed…cleaving to the divine things in the heavens by the power of [our] nous” (Against the Heathens 2.2). That word “nous” is an ancient Christian word for our deep spiritual heart and mind. We were meant to have this deep spiritual center connected to God always. When we are connected to God in this way, St. Athanasius says that it is like we are in the Garden of Eden ourselves. He describes the garden as a picture of Adam’s communion with God (2.4).  

St. Athanasius tells us that we are meant, through prayer and purity of heart, to be breathing from that second oxygen mask, but when people are not connected to God, he says, “[they] seek in preference things nearer to themselves, but nearer to themselves were the body and its senses…[they] fell into lust of themselves,” that is they met their own needs through their sinful passions, “[they] made themselves at home in these things…entangled their soul with bodily pleasures [and] wholly forgot the power they originally had from God” (3.1,2).  

St. Athanasius’ words reveal where our oxygen mask metaphor breaks down. In the illustration, as you look at the two masks, you also have a third option of not putting on a mask at all, but spiritually there is no third option. He points out that if we are not living our lives connected to God in prayerful communion inhaling God’s grace and love, we will automatically be inhaling the pale gas of our sinful passions.  

This isn’t meant to be a guilt trip but an invitation. There may be some pale gas habits that you feel stuck in, and you need to talk to someone about those, but for much of our self care time, we need to simply remember that Christ is knocking at our heart’s door and invite Him in. He is with you when you pause to rest, sit to eat, watch a show, visit with friends, and of course every single moment. We forget to pray and be with Him in all those moments. When we do remember, St. Athanasius tells us that our nous becomes more and more like the Garden of Eden. Connection with Jesus is the beginning of paradise, so let us focus on spending more minutes each day connected to Him. 

Originally published in the Holy Apostles E-bulletin. Subscribe here.