Blessings

A Post-Thanksgiving Call to Awareness and Gratitude

Steve · November 26, 2022 · 2 Comments

Dear friends,

On this ordinary day just a few days past the American holiday of Thanksgiving, I write to share a reminder (in words and in the video below) that faith requires an ongoing commitment to this idea of Thanksgiving — to awareness and living with our eyes wide open to our blessings. Above all, to gratitude.

We are called to recognize the holy when God puts it right before our eyes. It should be our life’s work to pay attention. I’m reminded of the words of Elizabeth Barrett Browning:

Earth’s crammed with heaven,
And every common bush afire with God,
But only he who sees takes off his shoes;
The rest sit round and pluck blackberries.

God says to us: “Listen carefully. Become more aware of the world around you, of the people and circumstances and challenges that I place in your lives. I will meet you there in these ordinary things and then I will make the ordinary extraordinary for you. I will change you.”

Below is new video (created yesterday) of an older song by me and my colleague Phil Cooper. Enjoy.

A Blessing for Prodigals (Like Us)

Steve · March 27, 2022 · 8 Comments

Yesterday, I presented a day-long retreat on the Parable of the Prodigal Son to a group of friends and alumni of the Aquinas Institute of Theology, where I received my training in spiritual direction and now serve as a trustee.

I ended the day with this new prayer of blessing, a reminder of the four important life lessons embedded in the parable that lead to a deeper understanding and experience of God’s extravagant love for us — Stop. Turnaround. Be reconciled. Change.

As you head into these final weeks of lent, remember it’s not too late to do something that may change you forever.

May God bless us in our stopping, in our listening to a gentle inner voice that says: “Enough! This is not the way.” That says: “You know better than this. There is no life in this. Stop doing what you hate and what destroys.”

May God bless us in our turning, in the effort it takes to switch direction when we would rather not, and head in the direction of a home we know we can trust, back to the arms of a forgiving God, a slow and steady movement to an unchanging changer who is also the all-forgiving giver of everything that is good and holy and right.

May God bless us on our journey back to reconciliation and forgiveness, beaten down and tired and hungry and aching as we are, longing for something we know only God can give.

May God bless us as we arise each day and seek to find the holy and the sacred in the ordinary and mundane, as well as in the extraordinary. May we see them all as gift and may we trust God to give us what we need each day as we raise our hands in gratitude for all we have been given and in sorrow for all the ways we have failed to recognize a God who is so clearly evident.

May God bless us and by doing so transform us into God’s own image, full of mercy and healing and service and love. May we be perfectly compassionate as God is perfect in compassion.

You’re in the Right Place If…

Steve · July 1, 2015 · 18 Comments

beach — Washed ashore. Freeport, Grand Bahamas. SJG photo

Tonight on our drive from St. Louis north to Des Moines, Iowa (en route to visit friends in Minnesota) we listened to Krista Tippett’s “On Being” interview with Fr. Greg Boyle, SJ, of Homeboy Industries, who has worked with gang members in some of the toughest neighborhoods in LA for decades. During the interview he said this:

“I read once that the Beatitudes’ original language was not ‘blessed are’ or ‘happy are’…but that the most precise translation is ‘You’re in the right place if.’ I like that better. It turns out the Beatitudes is not a spirituality. It’s a geography. It tells you where to stand.”

Which got me thinking…

You’re in the right place if you can stand and embrace your poverty and that of others, for one day you will stand very close to God. Maybe you’re already standing there.

You’re in the right place if you can stand before coffins and graves and cry, weeping for those now beyond your sight, for you will feel the arm of God around your shoulders.

You’re in the right place if you can stand behind and beneath others and let them go first and receive the best of everything, for you have much coming to you in the end.

You’re in the right place if you hunger and thirst for what is right, if justice brings you alive and injustice moves you to action, for you, someday, will be satisfied.

You’re in the right place if you speak words of mercy instead of aggression and accusation, for mercy will find its way back to you and make its home in you.

You’re in the right place if your words and actions are pure love, for you will see God in your own reflection.

You’re in the right place if you can make and embrace peace with those around you, no matter their faults, their addictions, their histories, their origins and leanings and orientations, for then you are accepting your given place as a child of God.

You’re in the right place if you’re ruffling a few feathers, if you’re hated for your hatred of injustice and your acceptance of the little, the weak and the oppressed, for you will find yourself sitting in the lap of God.

Blessing: For Those Who Create Art

Steve · November 13, 2014 · 2 Comments

flute — In a garden in Marshfield, Mo. SJG Photo.

May the gifts of the Creator-created world, which never cease to amaze and silence the noise within and draw us close to the source of all, give power and inspiration to those of us who try to make sense of a sometimes senseless world through art, music, movement and the written word;

May the blessings, tragedies, challenges and intricacies of our lives and histories feed our imaginations and bring to others a sense of the Divine that lurks in the sunlight as well as the shadows, a God who can sometimes only be seen through the painter’s strokes and impressions, the composer’s trills and silences, the dancer’s angles and speed, the writer’s sense of story and character and rhythm and truth;

May the presence of God in every living thing, in every color, movement, flow, sparkle and whisper be the divine spark that is captured and reflected back to the world by the humble servant of the art, who hears and responds to a call that cannot always be understood and yet continues the response as if driven by the very air she breathes, the very flow of the blood that courses through his veins;

pickers — "Pickers" at Antique Archeology in Nashville.

May we see our work as merely a small measure of all we have received, the first fruits of a greater harvest returned to the Lord of the land, an offering back of everything we hold close and sometimes covet too dearly — our liberty, memory, understanding, will, possessions and passions.

May we take our work seriously and ourselves with a grain a salt, with a growing knowledge that we are only instruments waiting to be played, apprentices under the guiding hand of a master craftsman, young players in need of the maestro’s baton, glimmering pieces of shiny glass and refracted light in search of focus and unity, sparkling moments of inspiration awaiting meaning and purpose, self-knowledge that we are moons, not stars capable of our own energy and light.

Blessing: For Those Searching for God

Steve · November 2, 2014 · 9 Comments

May the God we search for make himself known to us, allow us to find and hold onto him as we would a trusted friend, a mother and a father, a confidant and unmoving rock in our moments of confusion and weakness and suffering and everyday busy-ness;

May we be committed to opening up a space and time for God in our lives, finding in precious times of quiet and solitude the still, small voice of God that whispers just loud enough that we may hear him;

May we have the courage to touch the hem of Jesus’ garment as he works and moves in our lives, reach out with the confidence of knowing that his spirit and healing flows from him to us just as it did when he walked in Galilee, healing the sick and giving strength to the weary, for we, too, are sick and weary and in need of his touch;

May the bread and wine of the Eucharistic meal – the body and blood of Christ poured out for us on the cross – become a living sacrament in us, our real and holy sharing in the resurrected Christ…the source and sustenance of our lives and the sacred reminder of our connection to all who share in and become the body of Christ as church; and

May we be present to God and God to us, may we find as we search for God in our daily lives that we have already been found, have already been chosen and called, have already been marked as his own. May we come to know that we are known by name by the maker of all. May we find that through and with and in him…all things are possible.

(This was written for the Holy Childhood of Jesus Catholic Church community in Mascoutah, Illinois for the mission I presented October 25-27, 2014).