Blessings

The Irish mystic, John O’Donohue, calls a blessing, “a circle of light drawn around a person to protect, heal and strengthen.” He suggests that a blessing “is different from a greeting, a hug, a salute or an affirmation; it opens a different door in human encounter. One enters into the forecourt of the soul, the source of intimacy and the compass of destiny.” And that blessing someone can help them to become whole.

My understanding of the power of invoking a blessing on someone is that it somehow alerts the divine (as if it needed alerting) to our good wishes for that person, our benevolent feelings towards them. As O’Donohue says, “The beauty of blessing is its belief that it can affect what unfolds.”

I truly believe that each of us can bring blessings to the wider world – to the chance-met stranger, to the people in our city, town or village, to causes we care about. If you believe, as I do, that every human being has a spark of the divine in them, then we should try to respond to every person we meet as though we are encountering a possible new friend. I wonder how different our world would be if we tried to bear that in mind, every day?

Another aspect of blessings is our ability to recognise when we feel blessed. Sometimes, another person may bless us directly with words. I will never forget an experience I had on a Saturday intensive during my spiritual direction training. There were twelve of us and the course leader asked us to do the following exercise: Six of us sat in a circle, the other six standing behind. Each standing person was asked to think silently of what they would want the most important person in their childhood to say to them, and then to go around the seated circle, whispering it into the right ear of each seated person. Then we swapped, and the seated people did the same to the other six.

To receive the six benedictions was incredibly powerful – I was in tears by the end, and I was not the only one… And then to share my own blessing with those six friends, “My precious child, I love you just the way you are” was also so very special. It left us all with deep feelings of thankfulness and connection. In the words of Marianne Wilkinson, “If I choose to bless another person, I will always end up feeling more blessed.” So very true.

Sometimes, the blessing we experience will be less overt, and will need to be sensed and appreciated. One time that I was very conscious of feeling blessed happened a few years ago, when my husband and I spent a week in our favourite part of Wales with my daughter and her fiancé. The kids were tired out from work, and so was I. So we decided to take each day as it came. We got up late, had leisurely breakfasts, then headed out to explore that beautiful part of Wales – Dolgoch Falls, Portmeirion, Harlech Castle (and the wonderful ice-cream shop just below it), the Panorama Walk above Barmouth, and Bodnant Gardens. We ate some fabulous meals, and relaxed each evening, either playing some hilarious games of pool or watching DVDs together.

Each day was different and each day was wonderful. Full of wonder. We managed to let go of “ought to” and “need to” and simply went with the flow. Whatever we did, wherever we went, I tried to be present and full of wonder and joy and gratitude. The whole week was a lesson in the gentle art of being present, of having no particular goal in mind. Of simply being. Looking back, it was one of the best holidays ever. I was so blessed.

 

Aging with Grace, Mischief, or Both

The other day on Facebook, I came across the quote below on the Wild Woman Sisterhood page. It reads, "Your time on Earth is limited. Don't try to 'age with grace,' age with mischief, audacity, and a good story to tell." A little googling has told me it was written by "mindfulness expert and author", Case Kenny.

On the surface, I thoroughly agree with him. I have seen far too many older people (men as well as women) "disappear" as they grew older - disregarded by their families and their communities. Or at least, this is often true in the West. In societies such as Japan and China, the old are honoured as sources of wisdom, sages. We in the West should take a leaf out of their book, I think, and be willing to learn from our elders.

As many of you will know, I fully intend to "age with mischief and audacity, and a good story to tell." I started the process last March, by bungee-jumping off a 141 foot high bridge in New Zealand, for charity. It was an absolutely fabulous experience, which I will never forget, and it has set me up to age boldly.

However, I would also like to say a word for aging with grace. As we grow older, and have seen more of the world, we will (hopefully) have garnered some wisdom along the way. And will perhaps have realised that the "small stuff" - the petty irritations of day to day living - doesn't matter. For me, aging with grace is about letting go of the stuff that doesn't matter, while holding on to (and advocating fiercely for) the stuff that does.

As I have grown older (and perhaps a little wiser) I have learned to think before reacting. I believe that this is the core of aging with grace. The one constant of life is change, and the art of aging with grace is accepting that, not passively, but actively. It is not about no longer caring, but it is about not going off half-cock, whenever something happens. It is about the unique ability to take the longer view about events, because we have "been there, done that", and hence have a different perspective. 

Happy Beltane!

Beltane, which is the Pagan festival celebrated on 1^st May, is the third Spring festival of the Pagan year. The first is Imbolc, celebrated on 2^nd February and the second is the Spring Equinox, celebrated on 21^st March. As my friend, Celia Cartwright, wrote, “The cycle of Summer is ushered in at Beltane, a time for warmth, sunshine and for crops and cattle to grow strong and fat, and so provide a rich harvest to last the winter.”

It is also, as she wrote, “a time of renewing energy, of thanksgiving and hope.” And this Spring, I can sense all these things in the world around us. The Annual Meetings of the General Assembly of Unitarian and Free Christian Churches are always held during the Spring. And this year, they too were a time of renewing energy, thanksgiving and hope. More than three hundred Unitarians from all over the country attended and I think most of us left with hearts uplifted and new hope for the future. Daniel Costley’s Anniversary Service was particularly inspirational. It was an honour to stand on the stage during it and be recognised as a retiring minister.

 I think it is important that we can continue to experience the wonder of Spring – the sense of divine renewal, the small annual miracles of the first flowers and the first buds appearing. They have got to be a sign of hope, that Winter cannot last forever. There is the wonderful dichotomy between the revelation of the eternal round, and the revelation of that which is new. Every Spring we encounter something never before seen, a glimpse of potential for the future.

Spring is also the time when we feel renewed and have new resources of energy. It is no accident that Spring cleaning has endured as a tradition through the centuries. Partly it is a necessity (more so in times past, when people almost hibernated during the cold winter months, and Spring was the time of the big clear out). But it is almost an instinct too – it is a time for taking stock of what we have, of discarding the broken and useless, of repairing what is worn but useful, and of setting our faces forward for the year ahead. 

If we don’t carry out a periodic Spring clean, our lives can become cluttered and stagnant, with no space for renewal and growth. You can guess by this that I’m not just talking about physical Spring cleaning, satisfying though that is, but also about mental and spiritual Spring cleaning. It is only too easy to plod along in the same old ways, carrying out the same old duties, not realising how flat and dull our lives have become. Sometimes we need to have a good breath of fresh air blowing through our lives, revitalising us and setting us on a new path in good heart.