Blessing of this Moment

 

So far this week we have looked back at our life and looked around at the ordinariness of our days.  Today, I share with you a poem/prayer from Jan Richardson:

Blessing the Ordinary:

Let these words lay themselves
like a blessing upon your head (touch your head with your hands)
your shoulders (touch your shoulders with your hands)

as if, like hands, they could pass on to you what you most need for this day.

Pause ~ what do you need most today?  Maybe you immediately know or maybe you must search the cobwebbed corners of our soul through the boxes you forgot were stored/stashed there.  What do you need today?

as if God through your hands could anoint you not merely for the path ahead

but for this ordinary moment that opens itself to you—

opens itself like another hand that unfurls itself, (open your hands)
that reaches out to gather up these words – your words spoken and the ones unsaid
in the bowl of its palm.

Pause ~ form a bowl with your hands, image God is holding your very life right now.

You may think this blessing lives within these words

but I tell you it lives in the opening and in the reaching; (reach out your hands before you)

it lives in the ache where this blessing begins; (bring your hands to your heart)

it lives in the hollow made by the place where the hands of this blessing meet.

Pause ~ image God holding your hand now and every moment this day. Amen.