Pastor’s Corner - March 4, 2021

Dear Beloved Friends,

How is it with your being? Lately I’ve heard a number of people talk about lack of physical movement due to being inside with the cold and snow. I hear you. I love being able to be outside to move my body in big ways. Perhaps I can share with you an idea that I learned from my dad when I was a kid that can allow us to move inside even within a small space. When I was a kid, I had never heard about yoga, but I knew about prayer exercises – moving through stretches with breath and prayers. My dad did them very regularly, and sometimes I would join him. We did them standing up and laying down, but they could be modified and adapted to do when seated.

Here are a few ideas to try –

Reach up towards the heavens lifting your arms in praise – breathe in God’s spirit and breathe out a song, sound, or word of rejoicing!

Reach down and thank God for coming into the world to lead and guide us in the person of Jesus – breathe in God’s grace and breathe out hope.

Reach to the right and reach to the left – breathe in God’s forgiveness and mercy, God who casts our sins from us far as the east is from the west and breathe out gratitude that God’s love is freely given.

Twist to the right and twist to the left – breathe in God’s presence with us through all the twists and turns of life and breathe out the good news of God’s steadfast faithfulness.

Lift your left knee up towards your chest and back down then lift your right knee up towards your chest and back down – ask God how we can continue to follow in paths of his Son, Jesus our leader?

Wiggle your toes and plant them back on the ground (perhaps also make some rotations with your ankles), breathe in thanks to God for the earth and the waters that nourish us, and breathe out thanks for all the relationships and all the ways we are connected to those who moved upon the land in the past, present, and future.

For more movement you can repeat these and/or add your own movements and breath prayers. If you repeat the movements, you can change the speed or the words/prayers.

When we move even a bit of our body and think about the movement and the beath, we are changing. Energy and life are moving through us. In this season of Lent when we are invited to focus on confession and repentance, we can listen and respond if God is calling us to allow something to move through us to be released or something to move into us to redirect or inspire us. May you know you are not alone. We live and move and breathe and have our being in God!

Let everything that breathes praise the Lord! Praise the Lord!

Psalm 150:6