The reason I want to start there is because breath has long been associated with Spirit, and the health of any spiritual community begins with the health of its lungs, with its capacity to open itself to the breath of the Spirit. It is the Spirit that provides the oxygen to the whole body so that the body has energy and strength and vitality to do what it needs to do. This community, it seems to me, is able to be open to the Spirit and flexible enough to allow the Spirit to expand us and stretch us and energize us. I have heard people comment that when they come here they feel like they can breathe, and that may be because there is a certain spiritual openness here that leads me to believe that Tab's lungs are pretty healthy. But because lungs are so important for a healthy faith community, it is vital that we pay attention to our individual and communal prayer life.
Prayer is really about breathing.
It's about exhaling our needs and our longings and inhaling the life giving energy of the Spirit. When we gather in our circle of prayer I would like us to imagine that what we do in that circle represents the breathing lungs of this body of Christ, breathing out to God our sorrows and our concerns as well as our joys and our dreams and breathing in the Spirit's peace and presence and wholeness and hope. Let's consider now Tab's heart, that which pulses within us driving the flow of our energies. It seems to me that Tab's heart beats to the cadence of justice and compassion and personal and societal healing. There are things we care deeply about that serve as the drumbeat, the pulse of energy within this community, and that indicate that Tab's heartbeat is strong.