The gentle art of Blessing Oneself
A summary of Jesus ethic; ‘bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them that hurt you.” John Hilton. Blessing is a way of making peace. Blessing opens the door to the creative, healing, transforming power of the Holy Spirit. Blessing is a way of continuing the work of Jesus. Blessing is a simple way to practice love and forgiveness. Blessing is a simple way to practice mindfulness. Today I want to talk to you about the practice of blessing oneself, of speaking and thinking well of oneself rather than cursing oneself. When we bless ourselves, this opens the door to the creative, healing, transformative power of the Holy Spirit in our own self.
Jesus accepted the young lawyers summary of the law and prophets. [Luke 10:27] “You shall love the Lord your god with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind; and your neighbor as yourself.” Jesus told the lawyer, ‘you have given the right answer; do this and you will live.” Love God and your neighbor and you will inherit eternal life. And he adds, ‘as yourself.’ Love and bless God, love and bless your neighbor, love and bless yourself. It is difficult to love and bless God and our neighbor if we cannot also love and bless our self.
The words of the prophet Zephaniah [3:17] “…God, is in your midst, a warrior who gives victory; he will rejoice over you with gladness, he will renew you in his love; he will exult over you with loud singing as on a day of festival.” Have we contemplated our own uniqueness, our own value and blessing? Can we bless our own existence? Can we imagine, in the words of the prophet, God rejoicing over us with gladness, renewing us with love, exalting over us with loud singing, like on the day of a festival.
You elders, parents, siblings, friends, colleagues, applauding your existence, singing you a song. Not necessarily our accomplishments, but just who we are, praising our being, somewhat like how Joy and I respond to our grandchildren. “Ah, you make my heart leap up, you are so fine.”
Pierre Pradervand asks in his book on blessing, “I am 50, balding, an alcoholic, divorced, in debt, and you want me to bless myself? If my husband left me for another women, and I have two kids, one is on drugs, and I used to be beautiful and now I am way to heavy, and you want me to love who I am?
The mystics, Celtic spirituality argue that’s there is an inner reality, identity, in each person that is untouched by circumstances, that is undamaged, always full of potential and light. Yes, even when we are down on our luck, we need to bless our own existence.
I watched a young man serve me a McDonalds Frappe. Although he took my order, he was not able to operate the frappe machine, he was developmentally challenged, one foot shorter than the other, very frail, I wondered if he was going to spill my Frappe, he handed it to me and said with a great smile, “enjoy your day.” Perhaps his mother cried when she found out his disability; how he might not be able to run fast or excel in his studies, wanted for him a better job than to work at McDonalds. Given an ordinary mother, with some mental health, I think his mother loves him as much as any other brother or sister he has. I imagine she runs to meet him with love in her heart when he comes home for Thanksgiving. God loves all of us.
For years I would curse myself. When I would not do as well as I had hoped, when I was not chosen, when I made mistakes, I would silently call myself bad names and think poorly of myself. Measure twice, cut once, and still there were times when I would cut my board to short. My papers would be handed back, filled with red circles around the misspelled words. Cursing oneself, harping at oneself, reinforces subconscious self condemnation and rejection, it depresses the self. Blessing oneself can reverse this process of condemnation and uplift the self. The gospel states that I am God’s beloved, that God is good and that I am accepted in the beloved. The gospel states that God loves us unconditionally, that this is the grace of God. Reality, the ground of being, serendipitous creativity, God’s love is unconditional. This is our faith, and if this is true, then we ought to take the time to bless our existence.
Pierre suggests we get comfortable, or take a walk, and imagine God’s love, listen as if angels were rejoicing over us with singing. Bless yourself, you mind, you health, your work, your ability to forgive, you gifts. Bless your life. Think and speak well of yourself, and this opens the door to the creative, healing, transformation power of the Holy Spirit. I am precious in the eyes of God. I am one with the source of my being, I am God’s beloved. I abide in Jesus and Jesus love abides in me.
Elizabeth Stauffer, in her book Unconditional Love and Forgiveness, encourages us to forgive ourselves, to stop punishing ourselves for the wrong we did to others and reenter life, to let go of our regrets, give up unrealistic expectations and accept grace, like the grace we find revealed in Jesus.
Blessing others and blessing oneself is a practice. It is more a mystical experience, an accepting by faith, than it is an idea. Bless yourself three times a day, say for instance, “I am blessed, I am a blessing, I am good, I am so fine. Bless your paycheck, your drive to work, your desk, bless your day, bless yourself when you go to sleep, bless the payments you need to make, bless your heart and your knees, what you can do, what you want to do, bless your face. I remind you, this is a practice, and it will not do you much good if you don’t do the practice. It is the gentle art of blessing yourself during your day, that requires mindfulness, the doing of the practice.
As you go on to practice blessing your life, refrain from cursing your life. “Bless and do not curse. Do good to yourself, don’t harm yourself.” Refrain from cursing your work, your car, you blunders, your body, the wrinkles on your face you see in the mirror. When you get to me my age, you get some gray hairs growing out of your nose and ear, and I am told each time I take a bath to clean up the hair that plugs the drain and I wonder how much more hair I have to fall out each time I bath. Bless the fallen hair, bless yourself when you forget to clean it up and bless yourself when you remember.
God, I bless myself in ‘the smile of your great love for me’. Out of blessing oneself comes healing and the growing ability to be a blessing to others. Listen to these words by the American Poet Doris Peel;
Daily I am His delight
Daily He rejoices in
His handiwork-
All fresh, all bright,
All wrought for elemental light
To be what He behold as me.
His song sung out in world this day!
His theme in play! His act of joy!
Love laughts. And
O it is laughter
That I am!. His poem, His psalm!
In sight of Him
How fashioned of gladness
I must be! How lark-on-wing
A thing that – That He
Daily should thus
Delight in me: His poem, His song
Sung out, His theme.
Henry Nouwen left Harvard and went to live in a L’Arche Community, a community of people with mental disabilities. Nouwen said they taught him a lot of what it means to be the beloved. He writes,” Many of the people that I live with hear voices that tell them that they are no good, that they are a problem, that they are a burden, that they are a failure. They hear a voice that keeps saying, "If you want to be loved, you had better prove that you are worth loving." Sometimes, we come to believe these harmful voices that work to depreciate us.
Nouwen continues, saying that ‘In the spiritual life we learn to gradually listen to a voice that says something else, that says, "You are my beloved and on you my favor rests."
This is the voice that Jesus heard from heaven when he was baptized in the Jordon River. I want you to hear that voice, too. It is a very important voice that says, "You are my beloved son; you are my beloved daughter. I love you with an everlasting love. I have molded you together in the depths of the earth. I have knitted you in your mother's womb. I've written your name on the palm of my hand and I hold you safe in the shade of my embrace. I am holding you close to my heart, all your days and nights. You belong to me and I belong to you. You are safe where I am. So, don't be afraid and trust that you the beloved, that is who you truly are.”
I want you to gradually learn to hear this voice, this still, quiet voice, this soft and gentile voice that comes from a deep and intimate place. This quiet voice speaks the truth and tells us who we are. This is where the spiritual life starts - by knowing and claiming that voice that calls us the beloved.
Additions to teaching???
Is this teaching needed in this audience, where our children grow up privileged, affirmed, healthy self concepts, seldom have we spoken or thought to discourage our children? Nowen was accomplished, taught at Notre Dame, Yale, Harvard, author of so many books, praised and sought by the elite, classes full. Vulnerable, allowed others to see, to hear his weakness, depression, fears, insecurities, doubt.
We bless others, our soul blesses the Lord, and we bless our own soul.
Self blessing is not just waking up in the morning and knowing you are the brightest and best, self adulation, “When I walk into the room, all the cats purr for me.” You would think that Jesus had healthy self concept, that he who could bless others and God, could also bless his self. He knew, when great things happened, he would give credit to people’s faith and to God. What sustained him in life, was the two times he hear God call him beloved, when he began his ministry, at his baptism, and when he climbed a mountain with Peter, James and John, and both times heard a voice from heaven say, ‘You are my beloved son.”