I have been attending our 8am Contemplative worship service at church Sunday mornings. It is a half-hour service where we start out with soft music as we enter the space, and then we continue to listen to music while we contemplate something quietly on our own. This week was breathing or getting a breath.
Now, at first I laughed to myself because there we all were, sitting in a room with our masks on talking about getting a breath or breathing. No, I'm not one of those people who sits there and says that wearing a mask keeps us from breathing properly. But, it does change how one breathes in a sense.
But then I got to thinking about the space I was in. Church. And how, when I inhaled through my nose, I could smell nothing. Yes, I know, we were talking about breathing and I went to smelling. But you can breathe through both your mouth and your nose.
Here is where I am going with this. Over the past 6 months or so, I have had the phantom smell of cigarette smoke. It is usually triggered by an oncoming migraine or more than likely stress. It makes a lot of things less enjoyable. Sometimes the smell is so bad it actually triggers a headache. Or a stomach ache. It makes me feel awful sometimes.
However, church has become one of the few places where I do not get this phantom smell. So when I am at church, even with a mask on, I tend to breathe more deeply. It is so nice to be able to smell flowers or food or coffee or perfume or aftershave or hand location or whatever else people put on themselves. And it is even nice to smell NOTHING.
So when I contemplate about breathing or just taking a breath, I think about when I do that, through my nose, and can smell all that is around me that I am supposed to be smelling. And I thank God when that happens because I then feel a sense of normalcy that God has given me and I can get through the rest of my day.
 |
| The sky Sunday morning 5/22/22 |
No comments:
Post a Comment