We sneeze, Some one says, God bless you. In the now distant past it was thought that the soul left the body when we sneezed. A quick blessing brought it safely back. I think we can extend this idea of blessing to more than sneezing. What if we blessed our relationships, our work and our world?
There is so much stress and so many challenges which might cause us to feel we are just bodies functioning hour after hour with no room for considered, soulful living. Bless you, is what we can whisper sotto vocce when times are tough. We all need to be brought back to what matters, and the heartful act of blessing is a deep resource to bring us into our bodies and so weaving what is meaningful to the which is necessary.
Phrases posted on Facebook, November 2015
November 1. It’s All Saint’s Day. What if we could view ourselves and those around us as saints in the making? Wouldn’t that provide us with a sense that mistakes and difficulties that have happened in our lives are part of the journey, part of becoming able to be in a state of blessing? Blessing is my subject for November.
I don’t know about you, but when I first wake up I’m not always sure where I am or who I am. It takes a minute or two to enter into daytime awareness. If before regaining our sense of self, before duties and plans, before movement, we could turn ourselves over to blessing we would realize the immense gift that simply being alive is. We are born again and again in blessing to live another day.
With the palms turned up in our laps, can we ask that our hands be a means of blessing throughout the day? This early morning practice can make us much more aware of how we handle things. Blessing will infuse the way we touch the world. Such regard can be felt.
Before any challenge can we ask if the tasks of the situation are truly ours to do? If the gut answer is “yes” we can bless the responsibility before us. Living within blessing helps to make our task feel lighter.
On Veteran’s Day may we realize the contribution we have been given by our veterans. May they be honored, thanked and blessed.
My dear friend, Greta Sibley, gave me her paraphrase of a quote from Hildegard of Bingen. It’s for any of us that feel too much responsibility. Here it is: “You are not God’s only resource.” I love it!
Loss is inevitable. We all have tears, shed or unshed. As we weep the truth, we weep our way to blessing.
Man or woman, all of us are mid-wives of possibility or of destruction, of liveliness or of damage. Having a reverence for life we carry the power to bless with action that which can make a difference All around us are opporltunities to serve life in small significant acts. It is the way of blessing.. This is a huge response ability in a world so full of suffering and violence.
The Spanish Poet, Anthony Machado wrote “Look for your other half”. All of us have another self walking beside us. It’s the one there has been little room for because of choice and circumstance. When we bless what could not be lived for whatever reason, the light of acceptance begins to shine in our faces.
In the morning upon waking we can gently place our hands over our eyes, warming them and blessing them that they might see the invisible thread of meaning woven through the day as it unfolds. Doing this will make us more care full. It will gentle us.
Whenever we bless something or someone we have petitioned Spirit to open the door to more possibility and freedom.
B&B’s can be wonderful places to stay on a trip. As we travel through life can we be good B&B’s? Be present & Bless the ones we are with.
Transitions come to all of us. A job ends, a relationship withers, a new location to live awaits us, we become older and have to accept more limitations. If these changes are somehow blessed, they will be experienced as less dire. Blessing is like a river of goodness. It has carrying power. If we allow its flow we will be taken to states of being that are better than any plans of our own.
Many things will have been left behind when we reach a ripe old age. Whether difficult, joyous or both each thing was part of our becoming. Blessing what was and who we were brings about wholeness .
Everyone carries a bit of the infinite. From that endless endowment we have the power to bless and awaken what can be lived in grace.
Faced witrh confusion, challenge, loss, and uncertainty, the needle of our inner compass turns wildly. Due North is hard to find. But if we look closely we can see that the needle is fixed in the center of the dial. It is always connected to that point. Our hearts are also fixed in the center, and we are always connected whether we feel it or not. Stopping long enough to enter the heart’s depth of wisdom is a blessing and will help us know better where and how to go.
There are tiny impulses or minute inspirations that flash through our minds on a given day. Why not catch those butterflies in a blessing-net long enough to witness them? One may endure and inspire us to change our lives completely.
