A Week of Blessings

Everything can be a blessing, if you have the eyes to see - and the ears to hear...

 Everything can be a blessing - even life's greatest challenges, come bearing blessings...

 In meditation, and deepest prayer, I review the many blessings of my week...

 I begin the week by giving two dear ones, a blessing...

 That night, I attentively listen to a talk during a retreat, with the theme of blessing... In this talk one priest shares his ministry to a Hispanic community that blesses him every day. He is blessed, to be "blessed" so often! And I remember being blessed by my grandmother and mother on so many occasions...

 Yes, life - and every experience within it is a blessing. A blessing is hidden everywhere...

 At this retreat, we bless each other. My favorite priest blesses me in a beautiful way, and then I hold a bowl of water while strangers bless each other - with many of them deciding to impart an extra blessing on me. I, am visibly moved. I began my day by imparting blessings - and I end it by receiving more - multiplied many times over...

 This Lenten journey has been about journeying more deeply into my heart and experiencing blessings everywhere. It seems everything I read - reminds me about blessings - and the importance of recognizing them - even in the smallest of things...

 The poet Rumi once wrote:
"Listen to me!
For one moment quit being sad.
Hear blessings dropping their blossoms
all around you!"

I end the week and begin another, with a reading on blessings by Henri Nouwen, a Dutch priest who died too young, and whose works I devoured in the '70's and '80's:
"The blessing of the Lord is the reward of the pious,
and quickly God causes his blessings to flourish."
~ Sirach 11:22

"One way of claiming your blessedness 
is the cultivation of presence... 
attentiveness to the blessings 
that come to you day after day, 
year after year. 
The problem with modern living 
is that we are too busy 
looking for affirmations 
in the wrong places 
to notice we are being blessed... 
It is not easy for us busy people 
to truly receive the blessings we are given... 
Few people offer a real blessing... 
It has become extremely difficult 
for us to stop, listen, pay attention, 
and receive gracefully 
what is offered to us."
Today, be a blessing...

 Today, receive a blessing...

 Today, hear blessings dropping their blossoms all around you!

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