The Art and Practice of Blessing

A Celtic Curriculum Week Four

Welcome to week four of our Celtic Curriculum for supporting subscribers! Learn more about subscription levels here. Members and friends of Trinity Presbyterian Church in Herndon are eligible for complimentary gift subscriptions; just ask. 

This week we explore the practice of BLESSING.

About the Practice

Blessing is a complicated concept in our current culture. We know the value of gratitude in opening our hearts and helping us find inspiration and purpose. Too often though, blessing feels like a commodity, a mark of status and holy favor. It’s equated with prosperity, fortune, the good life. The word can feel oppressive to those who are going through tough times, an expectation that we look on the bright side no matter what. There’s always someone who has it worse than we do, so what right do we have to complain? We’re hashtag-BLESSED.

This maladaptive version of blessing feels like superstition, or magical thinking: we dare not dwell on the negative, lest we fall into a hole of self-pity, or tempt the universe to really let us have it, like a punitive parent: “I’ll give you something to complain about!” 

None of that is what this week is about. Blessing isn’t transactional. It’s a matter of noticing whatever the moment is offering us, of tending to the ordinary glories all around us. Remember poet Mary Oliver’s instructions for living a life? Pay attention. Be astonished. Tell about it. That’s what blessing each moment is about.

This week’s blessing: a tomato in process.

We can do that even when things aren’t going our way. I’ll never forget the seminary classmate’s chipper response to another classmate’s “too blessed to be stressed” T-shirt: “Eh… I’m blessed and stressed.” Or the preacher who said, “the Bible verse says to give thanks in all circumstances, not for all circumstances.” 

Here’s what Christine Valters Paintner has to say about blessing: