I thought in the light of all the ‘panic’ we have seen in the last few days especially and certainly in this last week it would be good to write something about breathing.

I have often talked to you all about the fact that coming to worship on a Sunday (or any other day for that matter) and then being sent back into the world is a little like breathing. You can look at it from two different perspectives it seems to me and therefore the two are intrinsically linked. You can either see the gathered, intentional worship as the breath in which then allows us to have oxygen for the following week and whatever comes to us and gives us grace to breathe the breath of God out into the world around us. Or you could see that all the events of the week are like the breath in and then when we gather for intentional worship we breathe everything out to God and for God – offering ourselves into his keeping.

There is a third perspective too – maybe the breath in is what happens to us in the week, the breath out is our gathered, intentional worship and we also take another breath in as we encounter God in prayer, praise, word, bread and wine and one another that gives us more oxygen and allows us to breathe out in the world again.

As many of you know I have been trying to use mindfulness as well as prayer to calm my thinking and it is all about noticing the rhythm of your breathing. I have to admit that at the moment it is very difficult to keep my mind or my body still. There is much to absorb from many different people and thoughts and reflections that have been latently at the back of people’s heads are now in this strange and frightening time coming to the fore. They are seeking out the ‘vicar’ to make sure everything is going to be ok.

Trying to keep the rhythm of breathing going in these circumstances is going to be difficult for us all. However, we can still have rhythm to our worship – joining in wherever you are as Heather and I say the daily office and night prayer. Going to the Church of England website if you are able to do so and from yesterday there is an audio version of ‘today’s prayer’ for those of you who need to hear a voice. It is just one prayer but may be part of your rhythm of breathing in the next couple of weeks and maybe months. You can find it at www.cofe.io/TodaysPrayer

The rhythm of our lives is going to be very different but it is vital for us to keep that rhythm going if we are going to stay mentally and physically well.

Heather and I have been doing a lot of thinking about the monastic or convent rhythm of life. It is a rhythm that encompassed prayer at specific points during the day, as well as the night; work, study, eating, leisure and exercise. I know many of you already follow a rule of life but maybe now, as our own spaces become more limited and we share them with others, it is the time to find a rule of life and a new rhythm.

What might that look like for you?

I am going to write mine out this morning so that I have a rhythm that allows me to keep breathing well and allows me to still take in the breath of God and breathe it upon others (obviously not literally!!!!).

What would work look like for you? Is it tidying or sorting a room in your house? Is it weeding the garden? Is it making or creating something? Is it emails or work phone calls still if you are working from home?

What does leisure look like for you now? Is it watching something – a film or a programme? Is it reading those books you’ve been meaning to for a long time? Is it playing a game with the children? Is it sitting with your family enjoying the sunshine in the garden? Is it creating something together or by yourself?

What might study look like? Is it spiritual study or enquiring about something that has long held your thoughts? Is it writing letters to friends at this time?

What might exercise look like? At the moment we are able to go out with someone from your household for exercise. Does this look like a walk or a jog? Or maybe if you are in the high risk category it looks like a walk around the garden or some gentle jogging on the spot or a few sit ups – whatever you can do try to do.

And what does prayer look like for you at the moment? There are so many different ways of praying and it maybe that it takes time to find what works best for you. However and whatever you pray we still need to be intentional so that we can all continue to breathe together even though we are apart. If you can walk outside can you pray as you walk for the houses and businesses you pass?

Yesterday I took a walk around the Quays and the docks and it was very eerily quiet – there literally was no one there. It was as if this was the deep breath of God or of the world and we are now waiting for the out breath. As I walked I was reminded of the way in which when I went on silent retreat for the first time 10 years ago I noticed how my heart rate slowed and my breathing became slower. My movements were slower and more intentional as the world seemed to stop and sing. The world is stopping – or at least we are – but it is also singing. Spring is still happening; the world is still turning and the endless love of God for the whole of his creation goes on from age to age.

Keep breathing whilst we take a collective deep breath and I pray that each of you finds your way to breathe in this time.

with love and constant prayers
Ruth

I hope you are all continuing to stay well and healthy despite everything moving apace. I am sat at home having opened the church and had several conversations with people on the street and in the shops (all at the required distance, I promise) surrounded by 3 phones and the computer all of which keep going all of the time. I have discovered – what I probably already knew – that it is much harder to have pastoral discussions on the telephone, by WhatsApp or text when you can’t see someone or their body language but perhaps I am learning to listen more deeply too.

People want to talk – of course they do and it is really important for us all to listen and to take time to hear what people are concerned about. However, I am also realising that the concerns of others can very easily make ourselves feel vulnerable so I want to encourage you to listen to the people around you or on the end of your own phones but please make sure you take time to do other things as well. However small or big there are other things to do that can still give us life.

That got me thinking about one of the questions we would have explored at our Lent groups this week – What is a Sacrament? The dictionary answer is ‘an outward and visible symbol of God’s presence.’ The Church of England have three sacraments – The Eucharist, Marriage and Baptism – all of them help us to encounter God in our lives and have symbolic meaning throughout the worship that helps us to understand the greater meaning of God.

For example the marriage service is about joining two people as one with God’s love surrounding them – we join the hands of the couple, they exchange vows, we bless and exchange rings and therefore they stay as sacramental symbols of God’s love as they wear them throughout all the ups and downs of life, we even ‘tie the knot’ with our stole once we have pronounced them man and wife – all symbolic actions of God’s love in our lives. Marriage and the service are therefore sacraments in themselves.

During the Eucharist we bring the bread and wine that help us to remember Christ’s love for us and in the re-membering and the sharing it is then that the sacrament of God’s sacrifice and love for each of us is outwardly shown to all of us.

During Baptism we use the elements of oil, water and light to allow families to know of God’s love and protection for them and how his promise is always to walk with them through the journey of life whatever takes place.

And all of these things help us to realise that we are then – each of us – a walking sacrament in the lives of those around us.

We might not be able to gather; we cannot hug or kiss one another; we cannot even maybe go out of our homes but what if everything we do do in the next few weeks and maybe months we do as if a) we believe ourselves to be walking sacraments loved and cherished by God and therefore being outward and visible symbols to those we are sharing our lives with at the moment and b) those things we need to do around the house are also done as if they are sacramental – part of our everyday worship of God.

Brother Lawrence (1611-1691) a monk at the Discalced Carmelite Monastery in Paris wrote the following quotes:

“We ought not to be weary of doing little things for the love of God, who regards not the greatness of the work, but the love with which it is performed.”
― Brother Lawrence, The Practice of the Presence of God

“He does not ask much of us, merely a thought of Him from time to time, a little act of adoration, sometimes to ask for His grace, sometimes to offer Him your sufferings, at other times to thank Him for the graces, past and present, He has bestowed on you, in the midst of your troubles to take solace in Him as often as you can. Lift up your heart to Him during your meals and in company; the least little remembrance will always be the most pleasing to Him. One need not cry out very loudly; He is nearer to us than we think.”
― Brother Lawrence, The Practice of the Presence of God

So therefore, whatever you need to do today – whether it be big or small – think of it as being a sacrament – an offering to God but also an offering from God that shows His love in the world.

For however far you might feel He is today He is right beside you and will never leave you. Remember the promise of Jesus – “I am with you until the end of the age.”

Stay well and keep in touch
with love
Ruth

I hope all of you are ok and well but I know that also the ‘fear’ inside us begins to rise as all of the things we took for granted and were part of normal life get stripped away so if you need someone to talk with about what you are feeling we are here!!

A friend wrote to me on Tuesday – ‘if the churches are shutting does this mean Lent is cancelled and I can take up the wine again?’. Humour is a great thing to use at this time to help get us all through but I want to say Lent is most definitely not cancelled! Lent isn’t, as we said, a period where we give things up – you probably need to make sure the things that give you life are as far as possible in place at the moment – but it is a space where we reflect on our relationship with God.

It is now, as life changes on a daily basis that our reliance is on God and God alone. The wilderness was the place the early Christians chose to go to in order to meet God. The wilderness is spacious (not empty), quiet, unstructured, disorientating. It’s a place where our normal means of navigating the world don’t work – no phones, no email, no titles, no badges of honour, no fashion, no keys, no passwords. It is where we put down our habitual ways of being and learn new ways of being. And in the disorientation we discover God in places and ways we had never expected. It seems we are now in a wilderness not of our choosing, but let’s choose it anyway. Let’s look for the gifts as well as seeing the tragedies, let’s notice God in surprising places and ways. Let’s dig deep in the hope we have because people really need us to have something more.

When everything is stripped away there is a chance to hear the still small voice of God who whispers your name and asks you to ‘come and sit.’

Please look after yourselves and take care – you remain constantly in my prayers.

with love and blessings

Ruth

What if you thought of it
as the Jews consider the Sabbath –
the most sacred of times?
Cease from travel.
Cease from buying and selling.
Give up, just for now,
on trying to make the world
different than it is.
Sing. Pray. Touch only those
to whom you commit your life.
Centre down.

And when your body has become still,
reach out with your heart.
Know that we are connected
in ways that are terrifying and beautiful
(You could hardly deny it now).
Know that our lives
are in one another’s hands
(Surely, that has come clear).
Do not reach out your hands.
Reach out your heart.
Reach out your words.
Reach out all the tendrils
of compassion that move, invisibly,
where we cannot touch.

Promise this world your love –
for better or for worse,
in sickness and in health,
so long as we all shall live.

– Lynn Ungar