Say these words out loud – I AM BLESSED.

Now say it again with a pause in between each word. I. AM. BLESSED.

Now one more time with a longer pause, and with your most powerful voice – I… AM… BLESSED. Even as I write the words, a smile emerges slowly across my face, my breathing slows and the my shoulders drop. Just saying the words alone, activates the imagination of the blessings already in my life, knowing many are not in my present awareness.

The root of the word “bless” means to consecrate, to make something holy. Interestingly, the word shares its origins with the word “blood.” To understand “blessing” is to know it as an invisible, cosmic bloodstream pulsating through my universe. A blessing is life-giving, it is life itself. The great Jewish sage, Abraham Heschel said, “Just to be, is a blessing. Just to live is holy.”

Blessings are generative, life-giving, but only if we pass them on.

There is a pattern inherent in being blessed and being a blessing. First we express delight when we realize we are blessed by something, just allowing it to be, then we give thanks for that realization and finally we become the blessing – the life of God – by passing the blessing along. Then we repeat this pattern, over and over, beyond measure. The benedictine monk Brother David Steindl-Rast says, “Where blessing flows in and passes on, everything comes alive; where it flows only in and stops, it stagnates… Repetition is the way time mirrors the eternal Now.”

We have heard the phrase, “blessed beyond measure,” and some days I wonder what it really means. For me, it’s to bless what there already is – simply for its being. Whatever it is, bless it because it exists, there is no other reason needed. Then we must follow that up by passing along our blessings. Blessings are generative, life-giving, but only if we pass them on – this is how we are blessed beyond measure.

Then there are the times when life is hard, when we struggle and what we may see in what exists in front of us is fraught with pain, anger, death, fear, violence, loneliness, overwhelm or powerlessness. We may ask ourselves how this can possibly be a blessing? There are times when we are challenged, when life stands still, or seems too dark to find our way out. Experiences and difficulties with people can make us truly wonder how we are being blessed when all we can feel is our sense of inadequacy or unworthiness. Our sense of belonging, of being loved and lovable seems to disappear into thin air, right before our eyes.

These are the times when I bring my full attention to the present moment, remembering I am already full of life. Whether I am walking firmly with great determination or I am unsteady and unsure like a toddler, and everything in between, I remember that cosmic bloodstream, that life-giving principle I call God, is everywhere present. I can feel grounded in knowing I am eternally rooted in this principle, walking my journey one day at a time.

When I claim this, I can see the challenges in my life are stretching the boundaries of my heart, urging me to grow in the midst of discomfort and to know I am expanding my wisdom and compassion. When I can feel the delight in seeing this blessing, I then must allow it to flow onward to another. I remember the gift of being blessed, and then become the blessing.

Since blessings are the life I see within all that exists, I simply cannot count them all because they aren’t actually things to be numbered! Rather I become aware that I am using that principle I call God – that one life, one love, one power, one joy, one health, one wisdom to imagine and to create a patchwork quilt of blessings, a tapestry of immeasurable peace and joy that sharpens my view for this never-ending gift I call life – in all it’s infinite expressions, my sufferings and my joys.

May this patchwork quilt of blessings help to sharpen your taste for the gift of life in its innumerable facets.

Myrtle Fillmore said, “Every individual has to live her own life and draw for herself upon the life, substance, health, and strength that are waiting to be brought forth. No one can eat another’s food for him, or breathe for him; neither can one person express the indwelling life and health for another. Each one of us must draw upon the source of these things for himself. Blessed are we when we recognize that this is the way of receiving, and do it.”

May you grow ever more blessed and be ever more a blessing.

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