Podcast: Download (1.1MB)
Subscribe: More
Thanksgiving is blessing. And blessing is mindfulness.
And so, blest are each of you, you who are precisely who you are and no one else.
Blest are you, wood above our heads; and you, carpet beneath our feet; and, you, flowers before our eyes, which together display the diversity of color which brings pleasure to the soul.
Blest are you Eternal, source of all wonders, whose Name we have yet to know.
And blest are you, final word of this blessing, for you are the threshold between this moment and the next, the very heaven and haven of our present and totally precious lives.
Senior Minister Emeritus at First UU Church of Columbus, Ohio
Mark Belletini was born in Detroit Michigan in June of 1949. He grew up there, attended parochial schools, and Oakland University in Rochester MI, then discovered his embrace of the Unitarian Universalist way at the Universalist Unitarian Church of Farmington MI. He graduated from Starr King School for the Ministry in 1978, served our congregations in San Francisco and Hayward CA, and retired from his last call from First Unitarian Universalist Church in Columbus OH. During his ministry he taught at both SKSM and at Meadville Lombard, and chaired the Hymnbook Resources Commission which put together the hymnbook Singing the Living Tradition. He served on our credentialing body for ministry, The Fellowship Committee, for 8 years. Skinner House Press has published his books Sonata for Voice and Silence, (a small collection of the devotional writings he used for years to lead into the great silence at the heart of worship he led on Sundays,) and Nothing Gold Can Stay, a book on grief. He is an active member of the Ohio River Study Group for which he has enjoyed continuing scholarly pursuits in the papers he has written and delivered. He has been an artist throughout his life, loves to cook, has been active the GLBTQ struggles both within the UUA and outside it, and is deeply and gratefully steeped in his Emilian Italian heritage and culture from all four grandparents. He counts his friends and colleagues the joy of his life, with his adopted and amazing son Tony Hess as the focus of his daily gratitude.
Latest posts by Rev. Dr. Mark Belletini
(see all) Tags: gratitude, quest-magazine-2011-11