 What is a blessing? A blessing is a circle of light drawn around a person to protect, heal and strengthen. Life is a constant flow of emergence. The beauty of blessing is its belief that it can affect what unfolds.
To be in the world is to be distant from the homeland of wholeness. We are confined by limitation and difficulty. When we bless, we are enabled somehow to go beyond our present frontiers and reach into the source. A blessing awakens future wholeness. We use the word ‘foreshadow’ for the imperfect representation of something that is yet to come. We could say that a blessing ‘fore-brightens’ the way. When a blessing is invoked, a window opens in eternal time.
The word ‘blessing’ comes from Old English: bletsian, bledsian, bloedsian. As intimated in the sound of the word bledsian, it means to sanctify or consecrate with blood. It is interesting that though the word blessing sounds abstract, a thing of the word and the air, in its original meaning it was vitally connected to the life-force. In ancient traditions, blood was life; it connected the earth, the human and the divine. Blessing also means to invoke divine favour upon.
We never see the script of our lives; nor do we know what is coming towards us, or why our life takes on this particular shape or sequence. 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.
Our longing for the eternal kindles our imagination to bless. Regardless of how we configure the eternal, the human heart continues to dream of a state of wholeness, that place where everything comes together, where loss will be made good, where blindness will transform into vision, where damage will be made whole, where the clenched question will open in the house of surprise, where the travails of life’s journey will enjoy a homecoming. To invoke a blessing is to call some of that wholeness upon a person now.
A blessing for solitude
May you recognize in your life the presence,
Power and light of your soul.
May you realize that you are never alone,
That your soul in its brightness and belonging
Connects you intimately with the rhythm of the universe.
May you have respect for your individuality and difference.
May you realize that the shape of your soul is unique,
That you have a special destiny here,
That behind the façade of your life
There is something beautiful and eternal happening.
May you learn to see your self
With the same delight,
Pride and expectation
With which God sees you in every moment.
From Benedictus: A Book of Blessings, © 2007 by John O’Donohue, published by Transworld Publishers.
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