Advent--Expanded Post

Do not be afraid.

Behold I bring you good news of great joy

that will be for all the people.

Luke 2:10

A season of new beginnings.

A season of expectancy.

A season of blessing.

What does it mean to be blessed?

I have been going over my notes from the retreat. I've been wanting to pull my thoughts into a writing of some sort. And I will do that. As I went through some of the group's insight I thought that I would share some of the raw data with you all so that you could kind of go through the process with me. Ken and Katherine were our retreat leaders. Just being under their leadership was in itself an amazing learning experience. They truly represented a beautiful model of spiritual reciprocity. Listening to God together, to each other in the Spirit, and leading the group together in that process. Strength and humilty. Confidence and deference. It was absolutely beautiful to witness. I wish you could have seen Ken's hand dance of reciprocity. Remind me to show you sometime. Anyways, I'm on a rabbit trail again.

Ken and Katherine began by asking the group (which was a fairly well-read group by the way) what they understood as the meaning of the word blessed. And I took notes. Here are my notes as I wrote my understanding and interpretations based on what the group had to offer.

Please feel free to add a comment that might be helpful to me as I write, or you can send me an e-mail. There just seems to be something really special in all of this I want to pull together. Now, if you want to read this in the spirit of the Quakers, after each response, take time to pause, let it sink in, and meditate with the Spirit on what it might mean and what God might be saying to you about it.

B

Blessed—what is the meaning of blessing?
(responses from group)

Not a gift that something has been added. But where something has been taken away, an impediment removed.

When you arrive at a point where something about you has been recognized. A change has taken place, a difference, so what you weren’t before you are now and you are therefore blessed.

A feeling of completeness, wholeness.

Totally open to receiving. Like a sun shining with a cloud in front of it, when the cloud moves we can receive the full blessing.

A gift from God. A deep KNOWING that is available to us.

New wineskin, which is a greater blessing than even the new wine. Or perhaps that the new wineskin which can hold many new blessings IS the greater blessing.

Blesse in French means wounded. Blessing has something to do with our woundedness, and the beauty of our healing in the reality of our woundedness. (I wonder does our ability to receive blessing become greater in our woundedness?)

Grace, healing, and gratefulness blended together.

Being anointed and declared good. That is the gift of grace. We can give and receive that grace as vessels of God’s love in the world.

When God imparts into my soul a deep peace, a great joy that transcends everything else.

A sense of being cherished and known and cherishing and knowing in response.

Emptied. Able to receive. Able to contain. Able to be filled.