For Our Journey Through the Seasons*
Creator of All,
open our eyes to your Word
scribed on every leaf and petal,
on every wing and paw.
As the seasons unfold in their vibrant dance of change,
may we read on their pages your call
to blossom forth, to bear fruit,
to surrender and yield, to rest into mystery.
Let the journey of caterpillar to moth
teach us the path of transformation.
Let the patience of mountains and the singing of stones
give us guidance for what it means to endure.
Let the rise and fall of the sun and moon
circling the blue-tiled sky
teach us about journeys to fullness
and to rest and release.
May your Holy Wisdom be revealed in each season,
that we might recognize grace at every turn.
~ by Christine Valters Paintner
Dearest dancing monks, artists, and pilgrims,
I am delighted that my newest book will be published later this month by Ave Maria Press – A Book of Everyday Blessings: 100 Prayers for Dancing Monks, Artists, and Pilgrims. Please plan to join me and Simon de Voil for the book launch on February 9th.
This is an adapted excerpt from the book’s introduction:
Blessings can be like warm bread for the hungry, a cold drink for those who thirst. Blessings offer hope and encouragement, steep us in gratitude, and nurture our courage. They bring us present to the grace of each moment. The word comes from the Latin, benedicere, which means to speak well of. Blessings help remind us of the love and beauty of the Holy One in our lives and assist us in taking nothing for granted. They act as maps to navigate our human experience, orienting us back to gratefulness and praise.
In Jewish, Islamic, and Celtic traditions, a central practice is to bless the unfolding of the day, each activity, each turning point. Everything becomes worthy of blessing. The Talmud calls for one hundred blessings each day, and through this practice we can shape ourselves into beings who pay close attention and who remember the One from whom all of life flows.
Blessings sustain us in bringing reverence to all of life—from the most ordinary tasks to the great thresholds of our lives. They immerse us in the holy rhythms of the sacred, which are not of our making. In a world obsessed with the scarcity of time, blessings help us to expand each moment like a flower opening its petals on a sunny day. They invite us to breathe more deeply, enlarge our vision, and give honor to our experiences. Blessings help us touch eternity here and now.
A blessing is an acknowledgment of the gifts and graces already present, and using them means that the mundane activities of the day become opportunities to witness grace at work. They become meditations and remembrances.
When my calendar and to-do lists become misplaced holy grails in my life, speaking a blessing is a way to put things back into perspective. When my heart aches and grieves over loss, a blessing is a sanctuary space within which I am held and met by the divine.
St. Benedict wrote in the prologue to his Rule:
Let us then at last arouse ourselves, even as scripture incites us in the words, “Now is the hour for us to rise from sleep.” Let us then, open our eyes to the divine light, and hear with our ears the divine voice as it cries out to us daily. “Today if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts,” and again, “He who has ears to hear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the Churches.”
The image of awakening calls us to shake off the slumber that creates a veil between reality and our perception. The act of blessing helps us awaken and see more clearly. When we remember to bless, we consecrate life, whether we are in the kitchen, the office, in church, or standing in a forest. Blessings are incarnational and connect us to the ordinary and everyday rhythms of life. Daily blessings for meals, sleep, and other activities immerse us in a stream of continual gratitude and awe for the divine presence in all things.
Blessings are a threshold between worlds and a portal to God as our source of life. They connect us to our spiritual lineage of saints and ancestors who gave and received blessings themselves. They call us to make our prayers transformative rather than transactional. We pray not just to ask for things but to cultivate a heart of presence and gratitude.
To be a blessing to the world means to hold a sense of profound gratitude for all that is. Blessing has a way of transforming our approach to life into one that is more openhearted, generous, and joyful.
When we bless our actions, we lift up our partnership with the divine in being embodied messengers of healing, love, joy, hope, and more. Receiving a blessing is an act of being seen, witnessed, and loved by another. It weaves us into a community of care and concern.
Blessing is an act of solidarity—it is a way to say to someone, I am praying for you, I am celebrating you, I am grieving with you, and I know the Holy One is praying, celebrating, and grieving with us. To both offer and receive a blessing demands vulnerability so that we can be encountered where we are.
Please join me for a free event on February 9th to celebrate the launch of this book of 100 blessings!
Tomorrow is our monthly contemplative prayer service. Join Simon, me, and guest musician Te Martin for a service honoring and embracing the gift of light.
With great and growing love,
Christine
Christine Valters Paintner, OblSB, PhD, REACE
*Blessing is from Christine’s forthcoming book A Book of Everyday Blessings: 100 Prayers for Dancing Monks, Artists, and Pilgrims (Ave Maria Press)
