Sabbath: it is good

May the One who creates and restores all things
the One who is Mary's child and child of God
the One who is Holy Spirit
may this Holy One bless you, and fill your lives with joy

this is the blessing I'm using at the end of services during the season of advent. It was written/created/composed by Bill Adams, my liturgics professor.

Muller's chapter this week invites us to remember the fundamental goodness in creation. He says that one of the reasons we don't stop and rest is that we're afraid to be alone with ourselves or alone with the world, because we fear that the world is bad. Or that we are bad.

That's certainly the message that we get pounded into us on a daily basis. We're bad, or at best incomplete, unless we eat this thing/wear these clothes/drive this vehicle. We're not happy unless we watch this Christmas special on TV. Your kids won't love you if you don't buy them the Power Rangers Ulta Mega Bonzo Blaster. It's even true in politics: Vote for me, I'll make things better. Given the barrage of input, it's no wonder we forget sometimes.

The creation story on Genesis is set against a prevailing worldview that offered a story of a destructive, violent universe. It told a different version of the story, one in which the universe is deliberately spoken into existence by God, and that over and over and over God affirms that the physical world is good.

Muller's suggestion for a sabbath discipline this week is to bless people, either with or without their knowledge. Lay your hands on their head and offer a prayer, he suggests. Or do stealth blessings--just look at people who don't know you're praying for them and ask for God's blessing. In this action, you are reminded of their goodness, and of the goodness of creation... and that goodness is a moment of sabbath re-creation.

I guess that's the connection between the ideas on the chapter (i.e., remember the goodness of creation and let that goodness allow you the freedom to rest) and the suggested sabbath exercise (i.e., demonstrate that goodness). But I had trouble making the connection, and more trouble with this week's suggestion. I spent far more time and energy and thought on it than I'm sure he intended. What Muller probably sees as a casual thing, what is a shallow pool for him, is deep water for me, and for my community.

While every praying parent I know prays for their children, very few of those do so with an actual laying on of hands. As he described his suggested activity, I found myself imagining my father's and mother's hands on my head while they talked to God on my behalf, and I ached with wishing that I was remembering instead of imagining.

Here's the other thing. Blessing people in God's name is one of the things I'm asked to do on a regular basis. Those are, more often than you might think, transcendent moments, or "thin" moments, when it seems that the fabric of heaven is just within reach, out of sight, over your shoulder.

For better or worse, (and in many ways I think it's worse), blessing people in the context of liturgical worship is something reserved (in my faith tradition) for a priest. And I struggle with that. And Muller sent me into an exercise of re-examining blessing, with a good bit of unproductive tail-chasing thrown in.

One simple way to introduce the conversation (usually about the transubstantiation of the bread and wine at Eucharist, but extendable to people with only a little stretch), is to ask whether there is an ontological shift. If I make the sign of the cross on your forehead and ask God to bless you, or pronounce God's blessing on you, have you changed?

Well, welcome to a subject about which whole shelves of books have been written, by people smarter than me. But here's my answer, for the moment: My head says no, but my heart says yes. (or at least maybe)

The biggest reason my head says no is that I'm pretty sure I can't tell God what to do. But my heart remembers times in my life when I have been on the receiving end of blessings, and experienced, physically, emotionally, financially, relationally, what I can only describe in hindsight as the blessing of God. Moments of re-creation, what I imagine Muller is looking for.

Maybe, just maybe, this happens because God always wants to bless us. And if there is a person whose understanding of the world includes the idea that I'm allowed to bless them in God's name, then when they see me, hear my voice, feel my hands or fingers, then a little window cracks open for God's fresh air to blow through.