Every time I cough or sneeze I think to myself “is that just pollen or do I have the Coronavirus?” And if you do one of those things in earshot of other people these days, you get grumpy glares from everyone who thinks you are infecting them. It seems we’re all even more aware of the air entering and exiting our lungs than we typically are, even during allergy season. We’re nervous about our very breath.
But breathing keeps coming up in other ways. Another church I follow shared the Nooma “Breathe” video this week, and one of our daily devotionals was on 1st Thessalonians 5:17. Those words, pray without ceasing, remind me of Breath Prayer, a practice summed by by the UMC website with the words “something as simple as breathing draws us closer to God.”
God is still in all the places he was before we were under a stay-at-home order. When we sing songs like Holy Spirit and invite God’s presence to be wherever we are, it’s not like he has to leave someplace else to come join us. We just become aware of what he’s already doing, of how he’s in our homes and our cars and our very breath. I hope as we all notice our breath this week, we’ll remember exactly how close to us God already is.
