Blessings Made Easy

In the beginning, the elohim created skies and earth.

Welcome back.  Let's talk about blessings.

I don't mean blessing someone out, which is bad, but imparting a blessing, which is good.  

"Blessing" is a great word and a great concept, but it has a crappy etymology.  It comes from an Old English word blodisoian which means "to consecrate with blood."  Picture doing that to someone's nose after they sneeze!

Like many things vocabulary, the word has undergone changes, so that it carries a meaning that inspires others.  Few words in the English lexicon are as positive as the word "blessing."

We say a blessing, receive a blessing, feel blessed, bless others, and before every meal some say The Blessing while closing their eyes even if they are in a restaurant full of pickpockets and purse snatchers.

I like blessings that happen easily.  They are spontaneous and go undetected until during a moment of meditation when the "blessing event" is revealed.

This happened to me recently at Mrs. Wilkes.

Here in Savannah there's a restaurant called Mrs. Wilkes that is one place where everyone in the world should eat before they die.  It opens from 11:00 AM until 2:00 PM, Monday through Friday.  You better get there around 10:30 because the line builds up fast.

They seat ten people at one table.  Unless your party is a party of ten, you will be sitting among strangers.  Spread out on the huge round table were serving plates of meat and bowls of vegetables.  The experience has the enchantment of a meal that started out as a few loaves and fishes.  

Now, I love to talk to people.  I'm more than happy to take the lead at a table encircled by people looking at each other as if they are each an unfamiliar food steaming inside a serving bowl.  

The blessing event unfolded after all our plates were filled with multiple portions all of us hungry strangers had passed around and dished out. That took a few minutes while diners expressed how the cornucopia before them surpassed their prior culinary experience.

I asked the couple sitting nearest to us if they were tourists.  Well, of course they were.  How did they hear about Mrs. Wilkes?  They were passing by and saw the line.  Where were they from?  Texas.  What did they do in Texas?  He was a middle school band director.  She was an accountant.

Without missing a note, I told him how I owe my love for music to Mr. Charles Cassavant, my unforgettable junior high teacher who taught me how to play the clarinet.  I explained how I played "Air for Strings in G" by Bach when I was twelve years old, and it remains to me still one of the loveliest compositions I have ever heard.  

I said, "I love every kind of music there is because of that one teacher.  He transformed my life.  You may never know how you affect your students, but I can tell you that what you teach is rich and never lets go."  

I think I said it better than how I just wrote it.  I can't recall exactly what I said, but the band director said nothing at first.  He seemed stunned as if someone had given him the deed to Mrs. Wilkes.  His wife was grinning ear to ear.  

I did not think much of it until later.  I wondered how justified I would feel, and how consecrated, if someone told me their literature teacher put them on the path to everlasting wholeness.

Yes, I want to be the Forrest Gump of blessings.  I want blessing others to come natural to me.   

There is so much hatefulness in our shitty world that I feel a spiritual obligation to cancel out as much wrath and fear with grace whenever I can.  I count myself blessed that I do not have to try very hard.

Blessings...