StOM StOM 1507 | Page 6

BLESSINGS A blessing can bring health, can protect in a foreign land, can strengthen in moments of danger. For thousands of years blessings are given and received, God’s blessing wants to give to life the happiness of fulfilment. Many church services conclude with the wonderful Blessing of Aaron: “The Lord said to Moses, ‘Tell Aaron and his sons: This is how you are to bless the Israelites. Say to them: “The Lord bless you and keep you; the Lord make his face shine upon you; the Lord turn his face towards you and give you peace.” (Numbers 6) ‘Much luck and much blessing on all your walks’ is a birthday song in Germany. Maybe ‘luck’ is another way of saying ‘blessing, health, riches’, we somehow shy away from the word ‘blessing’. Just like we prefer to say ‘fate’ instead of God’. Blessing is in our mind when we say Good Bye’ to our children as they leave home to go on a journey, saying ‘Adieu’. Sometimes we actually do say ‘God Bless’, when we leave somebody in hospital, especially when you have to think it is for the last time you see them alive. You can’t say: ‘See you later’, as people do in Glasgow, maybe you glance at them through a glass window on your way out and lift up our hands to wave, as if to send a blessing through the window. Do we actually shy away from giving somebody a blessing, just as we say :instead: ”Look after yourself”, or even rubbing your hands when sitting down for a meal and say “Bon appetite”; in Germany people often say: ‘mealtime’ –‘Mahlzeit’, which is short for ‘‘blessed mealtime’, at a time where there would be a prayer. An old vicar in our Suffolk village once asked me: “Did you give anybody a blessing today?” I had blessings from some unexpected quarters, once it was a lady on Glasgow station, who had lost her scarf and I ran after her to hand it back; and another time it was the Asian taxi driver who sat me down outside St Oswald’s. Yes, we do appreciate it, we do look for the message: ‘I am thinking good of you and wish you well’. These are words like sunbeams giving us warmth, hands that help, glances that make you happy, words that make a situation better. They send positive messages into the world, like harmonising music, a kind of positive energy which lifts up our world. God’s Blessing is the force which empowers, that drives the world. .And all happiness is a form of blessing, all loving kindness can be felt like a blessing. It is like being wrapped in the cloak of God. StOM Page 6