Blessing
July 31, 2006
A chapel service I helped plan recently juxtaposed the dominant community calendar (the academic one) with the church's liturgical calendar. So the chapel service the week before Ascension Day was entitled "The Blessing of Week Nine."
One of the neat features of the service was a skit composed and improvised by seminarians that illustrated the contrast between the flippant way we use the word "blessing" and the powerful way the word is understood in scripture.
They did this by juxtaposing funny 3-4 line sketches with longer scriptural or other readings. Examples of both after the jump.
***
A: (singing to self) God bless
America
…
B enters, sits next to A
A: Hey, you actually made it to class on time today. Way to go.
B: (somewhat hurried) Yeah, luckily someone was leaving a spot in the Psych lot just as I pulled in. It normally takes me forever to park.
A: What a blessing.
* * * * * * * *
Anny: (Sneeze)
B: Bless you!
* * * * * * * *
Reader: Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.
Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.
Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.
Blessed are the merciful for they will receive mercy.
Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.
Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God. Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Blessed are you when people revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on the account of Christ. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven.
* * * * * * * *
"Cursed be everyone who curses you, and blessed be everyone who blesses you," he said. I was doubly cursed then... but the blessing was more terrible still. When the camel you're riding runs wild, nothing will stop it. You cling to its neck. You wrench at its beard and long lip. You cry into its soft ear for mercy. You threaten vengeance. Either you hurl yourself to death from its pitching back or you ride out its madness to the end. It was not I who ran off with my father's blessing. It was my father's blessing that ran off with me. Often since then I have cried mercy with the sand in my teeth. I have cried ikh-kh-kh to make it fall with a sob to its ungainly knees to let me dismount at last.... Its long-legged, hump-swaying gait is clumsy and scattered like rags in the wind. I bury my face in its musky pelt. The blessing will take me where it will take me. It is beautiful and it is appalling. It races through the barren hills to an end of its own.
-- from Frederick Buechner's Son of Laughter