Blessing - Part 2

By: Paul Novak on: 03.11.08

Now I fancy you might come back to me from reading that last blog and say:

“That’s all very well and good, and terribly romantic Paul - a delightful way to imagining things. But what actually happens at Small Boat during the ‘Blessing’ bit?”

Yes very good question and I would like to mention that Small Boat went through a few cross currents with “Blessing.” Initially when BELLS was all bright and shiny, what would typically happen was that the person leading the blessing would yell out over the hub bub that things are to start and that it is time for “Blessing.” So please turn to the person next to you and pray with them.

Yikes. That was awkward. Like that game of musical chairs - once the music stops you could be left with … um … how shall I say this with diplomacy? How about … left with a situation you would rather not be in at that moment? Yes dear reader, it is not all bells and whistles at the boat. There are some people that I don’t agree with and some I can well imagine simply don’t get on with me. So to be plunged into a moment of deep personal connection at the start of the meeting simply because I happened to be standing near them can sort of make you feel a little uncomfortable.

And then of course, if you happening to be visiting for the first time, this sudden moment of spiritual intimacy can be quite threatening. To open up to a complete stranger on a point of personal need when there has been no prior negotiation of commonality will only leave the introverts amongst us extremely nervous. All the more so if your spiritual background has nothing to do with Western Protestant Evangelicalism.

But the big problem in my view was that the whole experience wasn’t a reflection of a blessing. Generally the conversation would inevitably turn to “So what can I pray for? Is there something in your life that is concerning you?” To which a whole range of levels of intimacy might be elicited in response and then a quiet prayer of intercession would be offered. Or on the rare occasion that you happen to be with a positive person, it might be a prayer of thanksgiving for something good that had occurred. Either way, it wasn’t a blessing.

Quite often the person might have come away from a prayer of intercession, saying thanks for that, I feel blessed now that you have prayed for …x and y and z, but that doesn’t mean they were blessed. They have just descended into erroneously utilising the word to describe a feeling. And when it comes down to it that’s fairly normal in our culture. We don’t do blessing very well, so we remain ignorant of its use. Outside a religious setting, perhaps the only good example of public blessing is when we send off a newly built boat in breaking a bottle of bubbly.

This was brought home to me when I was watching the film “The Story of the Weeping Camel”. A gentle film depicting the life of Mongolian herdsmen. One night a baby camel was born to this family so on the next day they performed a ritual of “Blessing” on the camel. Translated they say the words: “May your humps grow straight and your hooves grow strong.” I was so taken by this I snipped the scene and showed it to the crew the next time I was leading “Blessing.” I then asked them not to pray for the person next to them but to bless them by starting their sentences with the words “May you …” or “Let there …” or even “Be a …”. And if they could, to do it with their eyes open - looking at the person.

Although I didn’t take a poll on how everyone went but I guessed there could be even more awkwardness with this added restriction. At least with prayers of intercession you have an idea what to say, but starting with “May you …” just isn’t part of our normal everyday speech. And that’s partly because we have lost something in our world view – something that Sentness is designed to reclaim. And that is the imago dei. We are the image of God on this planet, and just as he blessed the world and it’s inhabitants with words such as “Let there be trees …” and “Be fruitful and multiply …” so we are to carry on in the same manner.

We are called to stand up in dignity (not in pride, for this role was given to us before we had done a thing), and bless creature and creation. We are to represent God - and we have been given the gift of speech for it – to go around the physical realm of this planet’s surface and pronounce blessing on what we see fit. We can create worlds within this world, societies within the global society, and bless them.

I was musing over this once and actually did it outside a religious setting. In my regular coffee shop I am known by those who service me. Banter flows along with the black fluid of morning’s rescue. One day one of the servers told me they were leaving and would be returning to their home country. In a moment of spiritual insanity I stood up and blessed them. Although I didn’t use any religious language, or mention God even, I just knew I stood in God’s stead and told the future to be bountiful for this person. They and I were stunned. For a moment I had just broken the social norms by putting on the robes of God. I had dressed up as him and it felt really good, although I was absolutely drowning in them as they were way too big for me.

Buoyed (I love my puns) by such an unusual moment of imago dei, the next time I was asked to lead “Blessing” at small boat I decided to abandon the usual coupling of people and got all to stand in a circle. People naturally held hands, but before they could start on an impromptu rendition of “kum bi ya,” I asked three people in turn to repeat after me a modified version of Luke’s prayer:

Glory to God in the highest,
And peace to us at Small Boat,
On whom his favour rests.

I explained to all that the first phrase is us blessing God. May he get the glory for what he has done. May it not go to a bank, a building society, or any company profiting on the current capital markets, who put their neon lit signs on the top of tall city buildings. May it be God that receives all the honour for any of the good that goes on in this world.

After the second rendition of the prayer I explained that the second phrase is a blessing to us here at Small Boat, not just for a 1960s hippie type wish, but for the Hebrew notion of shalom – a wholeness that embraces all of our humanity. That our physical, emotional and psychological well being will reflect our creator’s zest for life.

And after the third rendition, I explained how I saw the last phrase as a well needed reminder of how God has and continues to bless us. This small community is part of the larger people of God - a people who have received God’s unmerited favour – declared to be special to him; the apple of his eye – and called to spread that good feeling to everyone.

We then all repeated the blessings, and for a single instance I sensed that corporately we had entered into “Blessing.”

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