Anam Cara

How we think determines so much of what happens to us. Sometimes we are unaware of the most powerful truths about ourselves, for instance, that each of us has a soul. We go on with our everyday lives as if we are completely dependent on our own ability, though aware of how frail and limited that can be. The world of spirit is strange; it is subtle and concealed; it will wait for our calling. If you never think of your soul but confine it to some vague region of spiritual fantasy, you squander an infinite energy at the heart of your life. Once you awaken to your soul, you know that you are no longer alone; nor are you at the mercy of your own frailty and limitation. Awakening to your soul, you begin to learn another way of being in the world. The old barriers no longer confine you, the old wounds no longer name you, and the old fears no longer claim you. Not that all of this simply disappears in some new, born-again conversion. A blessing does not erase the difficult nor abolish it; but it does reach deeper to draw out the hidden fruit of the negative. The old patterns do not evaporate, but become transformed under the persuasion of the soul’s new affection.

The core of the human is not some psychological cellar that holds the crippled shapes of our woundedness and destructive choices, but the soul, the core self that dovetails into the infinite. Meister Eckhart said: The soul has two faces; one is directed toward your life, the other toward God. Our literal lifeline is this continuity with the infinite. To realize and believe this increases confidence; it can light up every thought, word, and action. Ultimately, thought is the infinite, breathing inside the word. Our grounding in the soul means that regardless of how badly we think of ourselves, there is a wholesomeness in us that no one has ever been able to damage. The intention of friendship, love, and prayer is to allow your heart to enter this inner sanctuary where it can regain its confidence, renew its energy, and quicken with critical and creative vision. The soul is the home of vision.

This is the secret heart of the whole adventure of blessing. It is not the invention of what is not there, nor the glazed-eyed belief that the innocent energy of goodwill can alter what is destructive. Blessing is a more robust and grounded presence; it issues from the confident depth of the hidden self, and its vision and force can transform what is deadlocked, numbed, and inevitable. When you bless someone, you literally call the force of their infinite self into action.

PREPARING THE SPACE FOR BLESSING

When a blessing is being invoked, time deepens until it becomes a source from which refreshment and encouragement are released. As Yeats says: Feeling I was blessed and that I now too could bless.

Wherever one person takes another into the care of their heart, they have the power to bless. There are things we never do, simply because it never occurs to us that we can do them. To bless someone is to offer a beautiful gift. When we love someone, we turn toward them with our souls. And the soul itself is the source of blessing.

A blessing is a form of grace; it is invisible. Grace is the permanent climate of divine kindness. There are no limits to it; it has no compartments, corners, or breakage in its flow. For the one who believes in it, a blessing can signal the start of a journey of transformation. It belongs to the same realm as the inner life—its effect becomes only indirectly visible in the changed quality of one’s experience. Where before gravity and deadness had prevailed, there is now a new sense of animation and lightness. Where there was grief, a new sense of presence comes alive. In the wall of blindness a window of vision opens.

WHEN BLESSINGS FLOW THROUGH THE HANDS…

The Bible is full of blessings. They are seen as a communication of life from God. Once the blessing is spoken, it cannot be annulled or recalled. It is often recommended that we should ask for blessing. “Ask advice of every wise person and blessing of every holy one.” There is also the tradition in the Bible that a blessing is imparted by laying one’s hands on the head of the one being blessed. When one is in sorrow or pain, touch can become the silent language that says everything; it travels deeper than words can. The head is where consciousness is centered; therefore blessing is always a blessing of consciousness. In the sacrament of ordination, the whole force and power of the sacrament is conveyed and actualized through the laying on of hands, essentially through blessing. The force of a blessing can penetrate through and alter the inner configuration of identity. When the gift or need of the individual coincides with the incoming force of the blessing, great change can begin.