HAVE YOU EVER BEEN IN THE PRESENCE OF SOMEONE who simply made you feel good about yourself and about life, someone who made possibility seem possible, who seemed to speak a language that was alive and animated with belief, a language free of the common corruptions of uncertainty or doubt, the twin troublers that contaminate our speech as well as our lives?
Have you ever spoken with someone and suddenly became aware that there is life at a higher elevation and that the steps to get there are fewer and closer than you imagined, that the world is much more beautiful than you remembered it just a few conversations earlier, that there is something as beautiful within you?
Has anyone ever suggested that within you are all the qualifications, all the requirements necessary to live life the way it was originally designed, a higher life, one that comes close to being heaven on earth, suitable for the divinity that longs for itself within you, that groans for expression and release?
If so, a state of blessedness exists, blessedness that is present and active, doing what it does so well, giving bright new interpretations to life, life as a celebration of promise and possibility. Of course, it is difficult to keep such a thing to ourselves. Therefore, blessedness has an expressive side. It becomes audible through benediction.
A benediction is something we say or impart to someone. It gives blessedness a voice, a generous voice that never fails to elevate, edify, and encourage. We use them all the time. "Have a great day." "God bless." You hear them often at the beginning or at the end of a church service. Here is an example from the book of Numbers. A state of blessedness, or we could say a state of benediction existed between God and Israel. He instructed Moses, saying,
"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 and be gracious to you; The LORD lift up His countenance upon you, and give you peace." Numbers 6:23-25 NIV
Benediction is audible currency, a thing best kept in circulation. A wonderful medium of exchange, it can be defined as wellbeing in verbal packaging, blessedness on assignment, miracle and possibility set in motion by little pithy bursts of goodspeak. It’s what love does to the speech. It resonates on the tongue, like a poem or a proverb, and there is nothing finer, there is no higher music, no more sacred art, than blessedness when it is found in the mouth of sincerity. It may be the best evidence we have of indwelling deity, the voice of the inner temple asserting itself in the liturgy of life.
Most benedictions put to good use one particular word, one of the smaller, more pleasant words in our vocabulary, that is, MAY, the little word with the big heart. If it’s not there, it’s implied. May is a word of permission, of assent, of allowance, a word of agreement, of endorsement, consent, and most of all approval, things each child craves, much like the rest of us.
Consider words like magnificent or majesty, magistrate, might, or even maiden. Among the relics between Old English and Middle English, the roots look the same. The etymology of the word suggests highness and authority, power, and enablement. The Romans named the month of May after Maia, the goddess of increase and growth. All these elements work comfortably together in the intimate confines of this soft, generous little word. The month itself is the very crown of spring, the most delightful time of the year. Could such a month have any other name?
We live in the age of information. We are a media-driven, data-hungry generation with gulp-and-run attention spans. It is refreshing, therefore, when a touch of poetry comes along to charm the ear the way it does, to slow the times. Especially when it’s alive with benefit. When blessedness meets beauty, benediction is the result. Like love, it does wonders to our common English.
May others see in you what they long for in themselves.
May heaven cradle your dream till it wakes.
May Christ be the only distance between you and the unimaginable life.
Notice how each of the above begins with our little host word. In just a few well chosen words, words that cost very little, you’ve given something of immeasurable value. How often the success of your child’s day depends on that first kind word. It’s a large act. It’s a responsible act. And how easily it is overlooked.
Benediction is a wonderful medicine between parent and child, between teacher and student, between you and life around you.
More than a life force, benediction is health and peace to the ones who practice and understand its use. It is an olive branch in the mouth of doves. It puts to silence the uncertainties that steal about the heart. It is an antidote where impossibility and hopelessness have envenomed life. Each one gives off light and warmth. The simplest of them has a lovely echo.
With continued use, benediction can establish a presence in a household, a standard of exchange. Impose it upon your world, speak benediction over your child, over your husband, to the person in your mirror.
The three examples above are just a start. Create your own. Be an inventor. A pioneer. Let benediction prosper in you, that it may exist in a state of overflow. Let it put wonder back into life again, into all we do and think, into all our meditations, in all our transactions with life, both public and private.
A benediction can be humorous. It doesn’t have to sound awkward, stiff, forced, or uncool. Have fun with them. They don’t have to sound like a fortune cookie or as if somebody else thought them up. The best poetry is the most immediate, natural, that which sounds the most like you. Give them your own shapes and dimensions. They carry a lot of presence with them. They settle on the ear with the resonance of a psalm or the mysterious charm of a parable. They empower the user as well as the one who receives them.
May your Christ be a warm one. May your Christianity be a door and not a wall.
May your heart be mended by what it heals. May it become full by what it gives away.
May Christ be the template by which love shapes itself in you.
If someone grins at you unexpectedly, may you find something sacred about it.
Where love plays, may you be the child again.
May faith come easier than you suspect, the step and not the leap.
May humility be the code that unlocks life
when it seems secret and aloof.
May your faith be enjoyable to those around you. May it be inviting, irresistible, lovely with mystery, warm like love itself. May your faith be a tree with a swing on it. May it be ice cream with extra spoons.
May you know the heroism in a simple act of kindness.
When heaven seems distant, and proofs are hard to come by, may love be all the evidence you need.
May love be the warm and central hub, the sun around which all your worlds revolve.
May Christ prove the impossible possible.
May Christ be the good filter that cleans and purifies you completely of all things that are not authentically and truly and remarkably 'you.'
May paradise be liberated in you. May it filter into every parcel, every outpost of your little world, restoring its original light, giving back something that was lost, and renewing a lovely mysticism to life.
May you never doubt the goodness of God.
May love awaken the explorer in you, the pioneer, the inventor, the holy man, the adventurer. May you find in you the stuff of Mr. Rogers and Indiana Jones, of Mother Teresa and Captain Kirk, all within the same bustling living space that you occupy.
I’ve listed quite a few benedictions here, but you get the idea. The last one is my particular favorite. None of this is difficult. This is all highly doable. It’s as simple as liberating the heart, and letting it speak. Just watch, and listen to life around you. Lack of opportunity is a weak excuse. There is always opportunity. Always. When it is in your power, leave no kindness unvoiced. Let no encouragement remain silent, especially where you may detect a need. Establish an order of exchange where blessedness is the rule, the scale against which all things are weighed. Then be consistent.
One last thing. Jesus took twelve scruffy, not-so-literate fishermen, and made poets of them. The greatest evidence of his sovereignty in our lives may just be in the way we express ourselves in the midst of the great congregation. Our words are currency. Invest them well.