A practice in the time of COVID
Connect with your heart - breathe love into the world.
Checking In Pay attention to your breath.
Breathe deep three times. In through your nose, out thorough your mouth.
Put your hands over your heart. One on top of another. Feel their warmth. Notice how they draw your attention.
As I read these categories of people aloud, find where they rest in your heart – or, if they’re not there, that’s ok. Get curious to what it might be like today for you to hold them there with compassion and God’s love.
Today we hold in our heart:
The dying
The vaccinated
The breakthrough cases
The ones struggling with COVID right now
The ones who spread COVID to others
The unvaccinated by choice
The children with no vaccination choice
The ones in populations that don’t have access to the vaccine
The Scientists
The Doctors
The nurses
The health care workers
The first responders
The ones who walk by people on beds in hospital parking garages
The families who cannot hold their loved ones hands
The mask wearers
The anti-mask wearers
The students caught up in dangerous politics and held hostage by politicians
The politicians who are making mandates
The teachers and the parents who have become teachers
The ones who beg for the vaccine as they lie dying
The newsmakers
The ones sheltering in place again
The breakthrough cases.
The ones who go to events as if nothing is wrong
The dying
Us
From 1 Corinthians 14:
9-24 For no matter how significant you are, it is only because of what you are a part of. What we have is one body with many parts, each its proper size and in its proper place. No part is important on its own. Can you imagine Eye telling Hand, “Get lost; I don’t need you”? Or, Head telling Foot, “You’re fired; your job has been phased out”? As a matter of fact, in practice it works the other way—the “lower” the part, the more basic, and therefore necessary.
25-26 The way God designed our bodies is a model for understanding our lives together as a church: every part dependent on every other part, the parts we mention and the parts we don’t, the parts we see and the parts we don’t. If one part hurts, every other part is involved in the hurt, and in the healing. If one part flourishes, every other part enters into the exuberance.
Go ahead and breathe three times