The Blessing

In the morning when you rise
I bless the sun, I bless the skies
I bless your lips, I bless your eyes
My blessing goes with you

In the nighttime when you sleep
Oh I bless you while a watch I keep
As you lie in slumber deep
My blessing goes with you

This is my prayer for you
There for you, ever true
Each, every day for you
In everything you do

And when you come to me
And hold me close to you
I bless you
And you bless me, too

When your weary heart is tired
If the world would leave you uninspired
When nothing more of love’s desired
My blessing goes with you

When the storms of life are strong
When you’re wounded, when you don’t belong
When you no longer hear my song
My blessing goes with you

This is my prayer for you
There for you, ever true
Each, every day for you
In everything you do

And when you come to me
And hold me close to you
I bless you
And you bless me, too

I bless you
And you bless me, too

What We Know

When we listen to this beautiful song and read the lyrics, we know what a blessing is. Knowing what a blessing is can make tears well up, unbidden; we exclaim about how beautiful the singer’s voice is, how magical this song she sings, but as beautiful as the singer’s voice, what gives this song its timelessness is what we know about blessings. We know about them because being blessed by someone who has the love and power to bless us is an archetypal event–something that is common to all people in all ages. Whether it conjures up images of priests and censers, or the trembling hand of a grandmother, laid on her new great-grandchild’s head, or that of a tribal elder passing his hands over the youth and blowing smoke all around the young man’s head, we know what a blessing is.

Many of us have received blessings from our parents or grandparents, and many of us have not. Many of us spent our childhoods and young adulthoods waiting for that blessing, and it never came. Some of us have sat at the bedside of a dying parent and received nothing, no gracious word, no hopeful epithet to suit us. Some of us were blessed and given charges by the people we loved most, and went out into life under this banner. Whatever our individual experiences with blessings, we know what they are.

The word “blessing” comes from the Proto-Indo-European word bhel, from which blood, boulder, phallus, and blind derive. A blessing has life in it, like the blood. Also like blood, it carries a unique code–like DNA–specific to the one being blessed. A blessing has the mass, weight, and substance of a boulder; people who have been rightly blessed carry the weight of that blessing with them their entire lives and have something of substance to pass on to others. Like a phallus, a blessing is generative and powerfully procreative. It has the masculine strength of the warrior with his spear, and like the warrior, a blessing is protective as well as defensive. Its phallic energy causes many scenes of blessing to be symbolically rendered through male figures, even though every person, male or female, carries this energy. Finally, a blessing comes from a place as dark as blindness, for it arises from the unconscious, from what we know without knowing how we know it. A blessing is prophetic, having deep spiritual and mystical origins arising from some ancient tap root with fructifying power.

A blessing is an invoking of God’s favor, an expression of approval and good wishes, and an act of praise verbalized over another human being. We do not write our own blessings; we wait sometimes our entire lives to be blessed by someone else. And because we externalize the need to be blessed and are always looking for the priest, elder, patriarch, wizard, or fairy godmother who will lay hands on us and bless us, we forget that, deep down inside, our own priest, elder, patriarch, wizard, and fairy godmother has a ready blessing.

नमस्ते

Of all the traditions among other cultures that I wish we would adopt in the Western world, my favorite is the practice of bowing to another person in greeting. I love the Hindu and Buddhist greeting, namaste, for it means “the divinity within me honors the divinity within you.” I can think of few other ways in which a greeting can invoke more powerful blessing than this one. So, today, namaste. The divinity within me honors the divinity within you. I invite you to bow to yourself, and to meditate today on the blessings that have been spoken over you and to you, and the ones you wish had been but never were. I invite you to meditate until images of your own blessing come up inside your soul, and then become logos. I invite you to breathe those words over yourself, speak them to yourself, and bow to yourself. Then, take a bit of that blessing, and bow to a person you love, and bless him or her.

Witness

As I wrote last, I’ve been writing about how I’ve navigated the experience of being cheated in order to illustrate how depth psychology and faith can combine to help a person get through difficult circumstances and grow. Approximately seven months into the experience of being on the short end of the deal stick, I was vacuuming one day and a still, small voice inside me told me that one of the principals in an agreement my husband and I had made had the “spirit of Esau.”

Though tedious to write about, this personal situation is useful. As I untie the knot of this story, you’ll be able to see what I saw, as I saw it, in much the same way as I saw it. Seeing is everything. St. Paul wrote that everything that becomes manifest is light; it’s good to see what’s what.

When Spirit gave me Esau, it was a clue. Like all clues of legendary proportion, it would lead to a buried treasure; but I didn’t know this at the time. In fact, I actively resisted thinking about Esau and assumed this knowledge had come out of me. After all, I’m no fan of Esau and Jacob. Theirs has been one of my least favorite Bible stories because of its nearly complete incomprehensibility to me. I have to admit that until recently I hadn’t even bothered to decipher the meaning of my dislike for the story, which also kept me from looking at it in symbolic ways.

Thinking that my own prejudice had brought Esau up in this thought-while-vacuuming, I concluded that I must be bitter. Though I wasn’t feeling bitter, I nevertheless diagnosed myself as bitter and unforgiving. A Bible verse from the book of Hebrews came to mind, one that warns Christians to “see to it that no root of bitterness spring up, and by it many be defiled.” I certainly didn’t want to be bitter, much less ‘defile’ everyone around me with my bitterness against our treacherous partners. “You’d better do something with your bad attitude,” I scolded myself. “You’d better get with the program!”

Like any good Catholic girl being scolded by her stern inner Sister Perpetually Judgmental, I snapped to attention and went to my Bible. “I’d better read that verse in context,” I said to myself. “So I can check myself out and see what this verse actually means.” And go to the Bible I did, to the book of Hebrews, chapter 12 and verse 14, which says:

Pursue peace with all men, and the sanctification without which no one will see the Lord. See to it that no one comes short of the grace of God; that no root of bitterness springing up causes trouble, and by it many be defiled; that there be no immoral or godless person like Esau, who sold his own birthright for a single meal. For you know that even afterwards, when he desired to inherit the blessing, he was rejected, for he found no place for repentance, though he sought for it with tears. (Hebrews 12:14-17)

As I’ve written before, God speaks to each one according to his or her own symbolic language. Buddhists get Buddhist hints and roadsigns, Christians another. A devout Muslim hears and sees God one way, while an atheist gets his sychronous insights another. The Spirit does not stop moving in the world or in our lives simply because we disbelieve. “Love never ends,” St. Paul wrote. God by every name or by no name at all never stops loving, and never stops giving.

So it was that I, a Christian, was led along the way to my true self through Christian words and symbols. But I have no doubt at all that I would have been led by every means available regardless of my faith, because everyone who seeks shall find. It is a spiritual law that seekers are also finders. This is just how good God is. God is very good.

THE LAW OF WITNESSES

One of the most boring books in the Bible has got to be the book of Leviticus, called the Vayikra by Jews. The third of the five books of Moses, Leviticus is full of laws. Laws of the Temple, laws of cleanliness, laws of birth and death, giving and taking, working and not working. Along with Numbers and Deuteronomy, it is tedious and almost entirely uninspiring. I avoided reading Leviticus as much as I could as a younger Christian. For every one time I’ve read Leviticus, I’ve read Psalms or Song of Solomon or even Isaiah as many as five or ten times.

One year, though, when I was much younger than I am now, I felt strongly impressed to read Leviticus. I felt I was to read it with love and the sort of attentiveness that expects a blessing. And so I did. I read Leviticus and thought about the book in present-day terms rather than relegating my head and the book to the ancient past. I began to see patterns and deep truths in the laws of Leviticus, Deuteronomy, and even the counting and classifying of the book of Numbers. I saw that laws had purpose and meaning and were not merely constructs of an ancient, backward people.

One law of which I’m especially fond is the rule of witnesses in Deuteronomy, which states that no one can be condemned on the testimony of only one witness. All facts, this law says, are to be established “out of the mouths of two or three witnesses” (Deuteronomy 17:6). This law is also applied to New Testament church discipline, since St. Paul taught that a church elder or pastor should not be accepted unless “two or three witnesses” were willing to testify. Two or three witnesses; keep this in mind.

The year I saw that these ancient laws can have meaning here and now was a very good year, for one of the primary things I learned was from this law of witnesses: Facts come with two or three. What this means, among other things, is that whenever truth is welling up within me, or coming at me from the outside, it will come in two or three ways. I may miss it if it comes only once, and since the universe is bountiful and God is good and giving, He will give me more than one chance to get a clue.

The day I was vacuuming and Spirit mentioned Esau, I balked and did not go there. But Holy Spirit loves me and knows how to get me to where I need to go. Holy Spirit knows that I willingly go down the “I’m wrong and I’d better straighten up” path. I will follow Sister Perpetually Judgmental when she is pointing out my own flaws, but if I have the idea that someone I love has a “spirit of Esau,” I’ll recoil from that idea. I don’t want to think such a terrible thought about someone else, for deep down inside I’m afraid of Esau. He’s a wicked, godless person. I surely don’t want anyone in my life to be wicked and godless.

So I followed Sister Perpetually Judgmental to the place where I would not look at my cheating partner, but would look at my real or imagined root of bitterness instead. I went straight to the book of Hebrews where in the very passage about bitterness that I so needed to read was yet another witness of (you guessed it) ESAU.

I still often miss first witnesses; but I rarely miss the second one. I can’t recall the last time I had to be given three or more wake-up calls before I woke up. So the day I read that passage from Hebrews, I knew I’d have to deal with Esau. Esau and his brother Jacob and what they meant on many different levels.

So this is my gift to you today, dear reader: the law of witnesses. Try it out. See how it works for you. How many times of seeing something does it take before you see that you see it?

Thoughts on Love

There are psychological preferences as expressed through type, and then there are moral behaviors. A person’s type may determine how she expresses her values, but it does not determine the values themselves. A person’s type contributes to how he gives his gift, but the decision about whether or not to give the gift is a moral one.

Psychoanalyst and author Alice Miller writes that people who grow to adulthood without ever having been truly loved as children are similarly unable to truly love. In that case, “we can only try to behave as if we were loving. But this hypocritical behavior is the opposite of love,” she writes. Only “a loved child learns from the beginning what love is.” Others have to learn what love is in adulthood if they learn it at all.

A person’s psychological type doesn’t determine whether she makes the choice to learn love in adulthood, or instead follows her natural but hypocritical inclination to act as if she were loving. Making decisions about whether to learn to love or not, whether to search for God or not, whether to seek out and develop one’s own true self or not, and whether to keep one’s word, commitments, and obligations or not are all moral choices. Not one of these choices is determined by personality or psychological type.

excuse me?

I think that growing up unwanted and unloved are good excuses for being a psychological mess upon reaching adulthood. But there’s no good excuse for failing to really learn to love rather than acting as if you love, no good excuse for failing to love someone with all your heart, with passion and sincerity, by desiring and acting in ways that serve the needs of the beloved in addition to serving yourself. I see no good excuses for receiving good in one’s life and hoarding that good rather than sharing it. There’s no good excuse for being given the chance to heal–perhaps many such chances–and refusing it or betraying your healer, as Judas did Jesus.

Jesus told a story about a wealthy landowner who prepared to go on a long journey. Calling three of his most trusted servants to him, he explained that he’d be gone for a very long time. “I’m leaving you three in charge,” he said, “so you’ll need this money I’ve budgeted. Make good use of it and when I return, we’ll have an accounting.” The first servant received one talent, which was worth nine years’ of skilled work–$20,000.00 in 2004 dollars. The second servant was given two talents, equivalent to $40,000.00, and the third servant was given five talents, equivalent to $100,000.00.

When the master returned, he learned that all but the servant who’d been given one talent had doubled his money for him. The one-talent servant had buried his $20,000.00 in the ground and returned it unharmed to the master. The master was shocked! “What?! You buried my money in the ground when you could have at least put it in the bank and earned me interest?! Why did you do that?!”

The servant replied, “Oh, it’s your fault, sir. Everyone knows what a hard-hearted man you are. I was afraid of your anger; it’s your fault I buried the money.”  Not fooled by the servant’s blame, the wealthy landowner considered the fact that two of his three trusted servants had valued something greater than their own skins. They’d been willing to overcome their excuses and fear to profit from the trust and generosity their boss had showed them.

“If you had really believed I am the hard-nosed bastard you say I am,” the rich man replied, “You would have put that money in the bank rather than risk having it dug up and stolen. You would have at least earned me the interest that money would have earned had I never placed my trust in you. As it is, you used me to excuse the smallness of your own heart. You’ve broken my trust and failed to return anything on my investment. You’ve just proved that you’re not the sort of servant I want in my business.”  The boss then took the $20,000.00 back from the hoarder and gave it to the servant who had doubled his $100,000.00. “Get that lazy servant who buried his money in the ground out of here!” he cried.

And there was weeping and gnashing of teeth.

love gives

Love is not a Scrooge McDuck. Love is a giver. Isn’t that the gospel? “For God so loved… that He gave…”. Love is a constant yielding in the back of one’s mind, all the way to and beyond the boundaries of one’s heart. Love makes me always aware of the yield sign.

It’s not easy to love. Love doesn’t come naturally to us. If love came naturally, we’d all do love like we do whatever else comes naturally: urinating, defecating, fornicating.  That love with its giving, yielding, believing, hoping, patience, and kindness isn’t natural to us is obvious. People are natural-born takers, doubters, demanders. We’re impatient and unkind. We give up, we don’t run the race to the end; we let people down.

It’s all so jolly as we go along loving those who are easy to love, our friends, the ones similar to us, those who agree with us and think our plans are just grand. But just let a disagreement occur, a difference of opinion. It stops being such a fine, jolly frolic when our differences draw blood. Then the stakes are serious.

When people are willing to give up their right to have their own way, I know that they are truly awake and alive to love, regardless of their psychological type. Extraverts and introverts alike are able to love. Extraverts may do it with a lot of words and production, and introverts may do it quietly without drawing much attention to themselves, but the character of the love will be constant.

love yields

Love yields. Because love yields, it’s not possible for love to have its way in a conflict in which one person wins at the other person’s expense. When my loved one demands his own way and I yield to him, one of us has loved and one of us has not. Love has a concern for each person in the exchange, each person in the relationship.  

“Love hurts, love scars, love wounds, and marks,” Nazareth sang, but love doesn’t have to achieve its ends through suffering. A person can always try to choose the path of love, a path that says, “I don’t want to win at your expense. I’m more than a vampire, sucking your blood; I’m more than a leech or a parasite, always taking and giving nothing in return. I hear that I’m causing you pain, and I’m sorry. What solution can we arrive at that will serve our mutual interests? What can we do to achieve peace between us?”

That kind of caring doesn’t arise from personality type; it is rooted in good character.