Calling on Wholeness
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I decided early on in my work as a minister that if someone asked me to bless something, I would say yes whenever humanly possible. That is what ministers do, I thought. We bless things. And I have blessed many things over the years: houses and barns and art studios, babies and elders and pregnant bellies. And of course I have blessed people who are dying and people who have died and people who are very much alive.
One of the best blessings I ever did was for the women’s biker club of central Massachusetts, who called themselves with pride and humor Dykes on Bykes. Apparently it is fairly common for Catholic priests to do a blessing of the bikes for motorcycle clubs but this was 15 or 18 years ago in a small country town, and the local priest, whom they asked first, did not feel it was the greatest of ideas for him to bless the Dykes on Bykes.
Luckily, he sent them to talk to our congregation instead. They roared up to the church one Sunday afternoon just toward the end of coffee hour, about 25 women on motorcycles and it was very, very loud and very, very cool. The congregation came outside and two of the teenagers carefully put holy water on the handlebars of each of the bikes. I asked each rider to tell me quietly what she felt she especially needed a blessing for and they were such tender things—healing from breast cancer, the repair of broken relationships, the well-being of families.
The whole congregation said a blessing that was something about May you ride safely and may there be joy and freedom and gladness in your journeying, and the women started up their bikes again and roared off down the street. It was pretty great.
I have never once regretted the decision to offer blessings when asked. But the other thing I have learned, and this is probably even more important, is that I don’t bless alone. All of us have the capacity to bless. It is something all of us can do.
I think my congregation is perhaps a little unusual in this tendency of ours to bless so much. I remember how our sabbatical minister was a little surprised to discover, when I showed her around my office, that I keep little vials of holy water in my desk drawer. Other colleagues have been surprised to learn I carry a vial of holy water in my bag at all times. What do you do with it? they ask me.
I give it away. I give it to people who are struggling or facing surgery or some other hard thing so that they can give themselves a blessing when they need it. Pour it on their heads or rub it on their hurt places or sprinkle it on their door steps or sleeping children. Or maybe just keep it and carry it around to help them remember they are loved or not alone or whatever they need to remember. I know someone who keeps his in his pocket most days. He just likes to have it there.
So what, then, does it mean to offer a blessing, to be a blessing?
To bless something or someone is to invoke its wholeness, to help remind the person or thing you are blessing of its essence, its sacredness, its beauty, and to help remind yourself of that, too. Blessing does not fix anything. It is not a cure. I always remind people of this when the animal blessing services comes around and people want the blessing to help make their dog not be afraid of thunder or to stop barking every time the door bell rings.
A blessing does not fix us. It does not instill health or well-being or strength. Instead, it reminds us that those things are already there, within us. A blessing is a way to remember strength, to invoke the capacity to grow and heal and change, to resist giving up. That is all a blessing is, but that is so much.
The poet, theologian and former priest John O’Donohue wrote extensively about blessing. In his book To Bless the Space Between Us he talks about the need to recover what he called the lost art of blessing. He says:
When a blessing is invoked, it changes the atmosphere. Some of the plentitude flows into our hearts from the invisible neighborhood of loving kindness. In the light of blessing, a person or situation becomes illuminated in a completely new way. In a dead wall a new window opens, in a dense darkness a path starts to glimmer, and into a broken heart healing falls like morning dew . . . . Let us begin to learn to bless one another. Whenever you give a blessing, a blessing returns to enfold you.
So much of the blessing we do is to help people cross these crucial thresholds, to help us navigate new experiences and the strange and sometimes difficult passages of every human life. This is a lot of what religious community is for—to offer each other blessings, to remind each other of strength in times of illness and recovery, birth and death, grief and joy.
Think about the last blessing you offered someone, perhaps without even knowing you did so. Was it the blessing of touch, the blessing of cooking and serving food, the blessing of folding the clean laundry? Think about the last time you felt blessed—when you felt taken into the care of someone’s heart. Think about how it feels to be blessed. Think about the blessings you can give today, right now.
I offer you these words of blessing by John O’Donohue for this moment:
May I live this day
Compassionate of heart
Clear in word
Gracious in awareness
Courageous in thought
Generous in love.
Photo: Dykes on Bikes by Thomas Hawk used under CC by-nc 2.0
- Calling on Wholeness - November 1, 2017
Blessings to you Elea Keller! Your time with our congregation in Gardner MA, was a lasting blessing, on our lives.
“Kemler” 🙄