11/02/2023
And again we are entering this trio of days that I have long treasured: Halloween, All Saints, All Souls, that thin place in the year that acknowledges how close the worlds are, even when they seem piercingly far apart. As always, I am thinking of those who have lost loved ones since this time last year, and whose grief is new and raw. I am thinking also of those who have carried their grief for a longer time, and who may be feeling pressure—subtly or otherwise—to “move on.”
My prayer (one of them) is that instead of trying to fit our grief into the timetable that "moving on" implies, we learn to move with, whatever this means for us: to move with hope, to move with memory, and most especially to move with the love that endures and keeps calling us into life.
Wherever these days find you, may they hold solace and mysterious grace. This blessing is for you.
BLESSING THAT DOES NOT END
From the moment
it first laid eyes
on you,
this blessing loved you.
This blessing
knew you
from the start.
It cannot explain how.
It just knows
that the first time
it sat down beside you,
it entered into a conversation
that had already been going on
forever.
Believe this conversation
has not stopped.
Believe this love
still lives—
the love that crossed
an impossible distance
to reach you,
to find you,
to take your face
into its hands
and bless you.
Believe this
does not end—
that the gesture,
once enacted,
endures.
Believe this love
goes on—
that it still
takes your face
into its hands,
that it presses
its forehead to yours
as it speaks to you
in undying words,
that it has never ceased
to gather your heart
into its heart.
Believe this blessing
abides.
Believe it goes with you
always.
Believe it knows you
still.
—Jan Richardson
from The Cure for Sorrow: A Book of Blessings for Times of Grief
Image: "A Gathering of Spirits"
© janrichardsonimages.com
