Worship
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Psalm 104:1-2, 24-25, 30-34 – Bless the Lord, O my soul! Lord God, how great you are, clothed in majesty and glory, wrapped in light as a robe! You stretch out the heavens like a tent. Above the rains you build your dwelling….
How many are your works, O Lord! In wisdom you have made them all. The earth is full of your riches. There is the sea, vast and wide, with its moving swarms past counting, living things great and small….
You send forth your spirit, everything is created; and you renew the face of the earth. May the glory of the Lord last forever! May the Lord rejoice in the works of creation! The Lord looks on the earth and it trembles, the mountains send forth smoke at God's touch. I will sing to the Lord all my life, make music to my God while I live. I find my joy in the Lord. Bless the Lord, O my soul!
Matthew 19:13-15 – One day children were brought to Jesus in the hope that he would lay hands on them, blessing them and praying for them. The disciples shooed them off. But Jesus intervened: “Let the children alone, don't prevent them from coming to me. God's realm is made up of people like these. After laying hands on them, blessing and praying for them, he left.
You sneeze and someone responds, “God Bless you!” You come to the front on birthday Sunday for the blessing which is Aaron's ancient Israelite formula, “May the Lord bless you and care for you; may the Lord be kind and gracious to you; may the Lord's face shine upon you with favor and give you peace” (Numbers 6:24). My grandmother usually insisted that father “say the blessing” before we ate. He always did the “God is good, God is great…” with such speed that for many years I thought he was speaking in a foreign tongue. The fragrance of Nana's rack of lamb, baked potatoes with bacon and scallions, and the bottomless bowl of mint jelly would brook no long-winded eloquence to the Almighty.
In his richly nourishing book, To Bless The Space Between Us, John O'Donohue, the late Irish poet and spiritualist, described a “quiet light that shines in every human heart…[that] illuminates our minds to see beauty, our desire to seek possibility, and our hearts to love life…. The word blessing evokes a sense of warmth and protection….” He described how “In the parched deserts of post-modernity a blessing can be like the discovery of a fresh well. It would be lovely if we could rediscover our power to bless one another. I believe each of us can bless. When a blessing is invoked, it changes the atmosphere. Some of the plenitude flows into our hearts from the invisible neighborhood of loving kindness.”
The power of a blessing is that it can bring God into the moment and greatly magnify your awareness of Christ's presence. Though often spoken as an imperative, a blessing is really a petition that originates in and speaks for the true and deepest desires of your soul.
The blessing following a sneeze is thought to have originated during the bubonic plague in 590 AD when Pope Gregory 1st paraded chanters through the streets of Rome in a superstitious ritual to stop the spread of the plague whose first symptom was thought to be sneezing. My Pennsylvania Dutch ancestors always blessed a sneeze with the German or Yiddish, Gesundheit, the wish for good health. What's your intent when you say to a loved one or a perfect stranger, “God bless you” or “Gesundheit”?
The birthday-Sunday blessing was reserved solely for the voice of priests like Aaron. Historically, the act of imparting blessings is reserved for those who are ordained or, in other traditions, born into an ecclesiastical caste. In spite of the claim of the religious hierarchy, each of us is capable of possessing both the inner presence of Christ and the union of Divine and personal intention when we ask a blessing for another. Try this at home: when a family member celebrates a birthday invite the rest of the family to join hands or, better still, place their hands on the celebrant's head and together recite Aaron's blessing, “May the Lord bless you and care for you; may the Lord be kind and gracious to you; may the Lord's face shine upon you with favor and give you peace” (Numbers 6:24). Then, come to church on the third Sunday and receive the blessing of your extended spiritual family.
Or, try this when your daughter or son leaves for college, or work, or an adventure: at the end of a meal everyone around the table joins hands or places their hands on the head and recites Aaron's blessing or, better still, offers a unique blessing. Into the confident façade of leaving home, that blessing and the assurance that the family is always united in soul space, enfold the unspoken fears of going off into the world. You don't need a pastor or priest to practice such an embracing and nurturing spirituality in your family; each of you has the power to speak the true and deepest desire of your soul.
O'Donohue correctly notes that, “In the light and reverence of blessing, a person or situation becomes illuminated in a completely new way. In a dead wall a new window opens, in dense darkness a path starts to glimmer, and into a broken heart healing falls like morning dew.” It is helpful to pay attention to your own experience as you invoke or recite a blessing. I'm not sure how it happens but you begin to realize that your words and being are the channels for God's presence and blessing. That is the moment when the atmosphere changes and family life is lifted one dimension more.
Blessings are difficult and awkward to do because they are new to us – they're the unexercised muscle that needs strengthening until there is a natural, easy muscle memory. Heart and soul, true and deepest desire compose the spiritual muscle and sinew of blessings. Imagine what it would be like if you were headed off to a tough business meeting, you'd lost sleep over it, you put in extra hours, and as you leave for the office an hour early to get ready, your spouse takes you by the shoulders and says, “Sweetheart, go with God; may peace be in you.” Imagine how you would feel if the kids were wired, stir-crazy from being inside after days and days of rain, and your partner, leaving for another kind of work, embraces you and says, “Lover, God bless you and hold your heart today.” Imagine your teenager, having spent long nights reviewing books and notes for a big test, getting up tired, unsure, and cranky, and then feeling your hands above her ears, ears that hear the words, “Kid-O, give it your best, may you be filled with great calmness and confidence.”
Imagine a blessing spoken in your own words, with or without using ‘God' or ‘Lord” or ‘Jesus,' a blessing that you would share with a friend facing surgery, a sibling making a hard choice, someone for whom you care deeply nearing death, a work colleague facing termination, a soccer mom or dad whose kid is acting out, an old chum struggling with difficulties in marriage, an adversary lost in anger, or your “BFF” confiding something to you. I invite you to add to your daily spiritual repertoire the art of blessing. God has blessed you and so you commit to becoming a blessing-giver in response. Remember: • Your heart and soul engaged,
• Speak your true and deepest desire,
• You sharing a loving kindness, and
• You assure an enduring place and presence.
MEDITATION
For a moment in silence, • picture a person in your life you would want to bless. • See yourself touching, • hear yourself speaking the words of blessing you most want to speak, • look into the eyes of the other, feel Christ being channeled through you.
Prayer in the words of the poet and prophet Rumi: “God, bless those who come first, and those who come last, and all in the line. God, replenish what has been consumed, and nourish the seeds of compassion…. Now, Lord of all created things, bless us. Amen.”
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