Anam Cara

I imagine that one of the great storehouses of blessing is the invisible neighborhood where the dead dwell. Our friends among the dead now live where time and space are transfigured. They behold us now in ways they never could have when they lived beside us on earth. Because they live near the source of destiny, their blessings for us are accurate and penetrating, offering a divine illumination not available according to the calculations of the given visible world. Perhaps one of the surprises of death will be a retrospective view of the lives we lived here and to see how our friends among the dead clothed us in weave after weave of blessing.

In folk culture, there is a huge power attributed to the curse. When invoked, a curse could kill someone. If dark intent can travel the negative path to hit its target, should the bright intention not be as capable of traveling the creative path to heal the loved one? It is impossible to underestimate the power of the human mind and the forces it can unleash. It seems that when a person finds himself in extremis and gathers his mind and calls out, something comes awake in the highest regions of destiny. Time behaves differently when blessing is invoked.

FOUND BLESSINGS

It was Kierkegaard who said that life must be lived forward, but it can only be understood backward. Most of the time we are unaware of how blessed our lives are. Poets often refer to an occasional poem as a “found poem.” In contrast to the usual travails, frustrations, and endless versions through which most poems come to life, this is a poem that practically wrote itself. Perhaps in terms of blessing, we could say the same: there are around our lives “found blessings.” Friendship, for instance, is one. Yeats once said, friendship is the only house we have to offer. Without the blessing of friendship, we would never have become who we are. In the climate of love and understanding that friendship provides, we take root and blossom into full human beings. Our friends are the mirrors where we recognize ourselves, and quite often it is their generosity of spirit that has enabled us to grow and flourish. There is also the blessing of health: the ability to see, to hear, to understand, and to celebrate life. The found blessings also include the gifts that we find coming alive in our lives, abilities that sleep in our hearts that we never suspected. There are also the blessings of our discoveries and modest accomplishments. All of these have been given to us; on our own we could never have merited or earned them. The more we recognize our found blessings, the more they increase around us.

THE SECRET SUSTENANCE OF OUR UNCHOSEN LIVES

On certain birthdays the shape of our unfolding life comes into clearer view. Because we are netted into the webbing of each day’s chores and duties, we seldom see the shape our lives have taken. When we look back, we can identify the key thresholds where the vital happenings of our lives occurred. These were usually the times when we were confronted with decisions about the paths we wanted to travel. Perhaps there were seven of these decisive thresholds in your life up to now. When you look at each threshold, you see that you had several choices at each point. You could always choose only one path. In this way the person you are today is the result of the path you chose. Out of these choices you have inherited and shaped your chosen life. This is the life you live now. This is the person you have become. When you visit these thresholds, you will see how you chose your life.

The interesting question is, What happened to the lives you once had as options but did not choose? Where do they dwell? Perhaps your unlived lives run parallel to your current life and in some subtle way continue to influence the choices you make. All this might be happening beside you and in you, yet unknown to you. Maybe these unlived yet still unfolding lives are the sustenance from which your chosen life draws. Maybe this is one of the secrets of death: that you die only when your invisible, unchosen lives have also fulfilled themselves, so that you bring into the eternal world not only your one known life but also the unknown, unchosen lives as well. Maybe your visible life is but the outer edge of a whole enterprise of creativity and realization in which you are unknowingly involved. This unseen ground of your unfolding in the world is a place that needs blessing and holds the key to the invisible. Blessing strengthens the network of presence you carry through the world.

BLESSING OUR WORLD NOW