Today’s Word: ‘Blessings’ as in… they do occur.
One of my dearest and closest life-long friends sent me a poem today. ‘Blessings’ by Ronald Wallace is one of those poems that you want to read more than a few times; the kind you return to like you return to a photograph or a painting that keeps revealing things even when you’re not looking at it.
Honestly, it would be a shame to miss even one syllable of this poem.
My friend serves as a chaplain in a Portland hospital. Each day he walks into the lives of people whose names we’ll never know, whose faces we’ll never see, whose circumstances we can’t imagine. But he does, and he can. He is a blessing to them and in some mystical way, they are a blessing to him. With strategies of hope and wholeness already in place for supporting families that are dealing with the coronavirus, he and his colleagues are equally diligent about the strategies for their own health and wellbeing as they walk deeply into every precious life. And they do so with the expectation that there will be at least one moment that conveys blessing on everyone.
This much they know: blessings occur. You might want to read this at least a couple of times.
Blessings
occur.
Some days I find myself
putting my foot in
the same stream twice;
leading a horse to water
and making him drink.
I have a clue.
I can see the forest
for the trees.
All around me people
are making silk purses
out of sows’ ears,
getting blood from turnips,
building Rome in a day.
There’s a business
like show business.
There’s something new
under the sun.
Some days misery
no longer loves company;
it puts itself out of its.
There’s rest for the weary.
There’s turning back.
There are guarantees.
I can be serious.
I can mean that.
You can quite
put your finger on it.
Some days I know
I am long for this world.
I can go home again.
And when I go
I can
take it with me.