Scripture
God has given us the task of telling everyone what he is doing. We’re Christ’s representatives. God uses us to persuade men and women to drop their differences and enter into God’s work of making things right between them. We’re speaking for Christ himself now: Become friends with God; he’s already a friend with you.
2 Corinthians 5:17–20 The Message
Spiritual Focus
“Longing, felt fully, carries us to belonging.” Tara Brach
Devotion
We are all longing to belong. We don’t long to belong to just anything; we long to belong to Love with a capital L. We take detours away from this Love sometimes—possibly many times—in an attempt to figure things out, yet we’re always welcome to come home to Love. Thanks be to God that God is faithful to the promise to be with us always, no matter what, that God always stands ready to guide us back home through the gentle nudges of the Holy Spirit. God fulfilled the promise of belonging in Jesus, and when we live the way of Jesus—the way of peace, harmony, love, and care for neighbor as our self—we capture the essence of what it means to long, belong, and live.
In yoga we have a Sanskrit word for “community”—sangha, which implies that we belong to each other for support. “Tribe” is another word for “community,” the difference being that it carries the weight of survival in its meaning, whereas sangha is more about community support and awakening. We live out our faith through our yoga practice when we embrace the idea that what we do on the mat is reflected in our actions off the mat and in community. In our faith practices we understand that we belong to God and to each other for the sake of our world . . . the world that God loved so much that God sent Jesus to show us how to live together in love.
Breath Prayer
Inhale | I Am
Exhale | a Friend
Focus Pose: You might not think so, but living in community takes practice. This week practice community on and off your mat. Take a class, arrange to meet a friend and practice yoga together, or perhaps bring your mat to a public park where you know others practice. Practice community off your mat as well. Bring extra homegrown produce to a local food pantry, show up for a community service project, or organize a neighborhood block party. However you choose to practice community, bring to the practice your full presence and attention and suspend judgment of your neighbors. Be a friend.
