
Photo: Philip McCrea - Belfast, Sunday just before sunrise from Cave Hill
A prayer I prayed in Fitzroy just before the 4 Corners Festival 2021 where the theme of the Festival was Breathe...
Lord, when we think of our city and our world
Over these last 10 months
We are aware that we have had the breath knocked out of us
Not only by Covid
But by sectarianism, ever with us
And racist attacks
Like the one in the Belfast Multi Cultural Centre building
That uses to be a church
Donegal Pass Presbyterian met in that building
And some of us worshiped there
A racist hate crime
Knocking the breath out of people’s lives
And Domestic abuse Lord,
Sometimes literally knocking the breath out of us
Businesses on the brink Lord
In these strange times, knocking the breath out of us
Brexit’s uncertainty, knocking the breath out of us
And the pressures in hospitals and schools
Working on our frontlines
Breathless, weary
And Lord there has been illness, grief, isolation
It is not only the physical that we are feeling
But there is pressure
On our mental, emotional and spiritual lives
Like the breath is being knocked out of us
And so we pray for our city
Our world
And our own lives
That you would breathe
Your warm sweet breath of love
And comfort, strength and resilience.
As we breath in Lord
May we breath in
Your warm sweet breath of love *
And Lord we are aware this morning
That we have a city and a world
That needs that warm sweet breath of love
Breathed upon it
Lord “may we be your breath
Moving over the face of the deep
May we be a particle of your light
Glowing over the hills of morning” **
May we be your resource
To breath out
The warm sweet breath of love
And comfort and strength and resilience
To all of those that we may meet
Though that is less likely in lockdown days
But to those we intentionally reach out to
In social media, or my phone or by letter
Or maybe even just prayer at a distance.
As we breath in Lord
May we breath in
Your warm sweet breath of love
As we breathe out Lord
May we breathe your warm sweet breath of love
Across our city… and our world.
Amen
* The Warm Sweet Breath Of Love is a song by Horslips
** These lines are from Bruce Cockburn's song The Hills Of Morning