Prayers of Life: Breath

 

Breath in the cold air. People walking for exercise or essential tasks have certainly needed extra warm clothing recently. The mist and fog hang heavy some mornings and it creates a special atmosphere of mystery. I can’t help noticing how people’s breath hangs in the air, it looks reminiscent of a steam train chugging down the line. It also reminds me, Lord, of the essential human need for air to keep our bodies alive. It is you who give us the breath of life.

The visibility of our breath also shows how our presence leaves an impression, and the vapours hang in the air for longer than I would usually notice or imagine. If I walk through someone’s breath on the street, whitened by hot air expelled into the cold wintry street, is there a risk? I wonder. But if it wasn’t so cold I wouldn’t notice.

I wonder what else I don’t notice, Lord. Warm breath in cold air suggests I too have this normally invisible “contact” with others. This leads me to think that I probably often have an influence on others, somewhat indirectly by just being in the same area. I know I can look impatient or unconcerned sometimes, but I guess my tone of voice and body language can communicate something at a deeper level than I am truly aware of. I need to remember that wherever I am, wherever I breathe, I can seek to allow your loving Spirit to hold and guide me, so that – imperfect as I am – others may experience something of you, the invisible presence of the One who gives us the breath of Life.

Lord God, when the risen Lord Jesus breathed over his disciples he was spiritually offering them the presence of your Spirit to inspire and strengthen them for Christian sharing and caring. By your Spirit, may I, with my fellow Christians, remain faithful to the gospel call and live to proclaim your love wherever we may be, intentionally or not.

Prayers of Life revisited….

Some while ago, Michel Quoist, a Catholic priest, published a book called Prayers of Life. It became extremely popular, as it took situations from everyday life, contemplated them and prayed about them. It encouraged a closeness or familiarity with God -  present in everyday events and observations - which made a profound contrast with the churches’ forms of worship at the time which were almost entirely the Book of Common Prayer and the Latin Mass, neither of which was particularly contemporary.