A Blessing
by Rev. Dr. Amy Chilton on 12/28/23
As I am rounding out this year at the Chilton Homestead, I leave you this blessing. We all have losses and gains and lessons learned from this past year. I have been privileged to walk with you through some of yours. As we finish this year out together, I pray for God's blessings and presence in 2024, just as God was present with us in 2023.
Blessings,
Pastor Amy
“At the End of the Year”
The particular mind of the ocean
Filling the coastline’s longing
With such brief harvest
Of elegant, vanishing waves
Is like the mind of time
Opening us shapes of days.
As this year draws to its end,
We give thanks for the gifts it brought
And how they became inlaid within
Where neither time nor time can touch them.
The days when the veil lifted
And the soul could see delight;
When a quiver caressed the heart
In the sheer exuberance of being here.
Surprises that came awake
In forgotten corners of old fields
Where expectations seemed to have quenched.
The slow, brooding times
When all was awkward
And the wave in the mind
Pierced every sore with salt.
The darkened days that stopped
The confidence of dawn.
Days when beloved faces shone brighter
With light from beyond themselves;
And from the granite of some secret sorrow
A steam of buried tears loosened.
We bless this year for all we learned,
For all we loved and lost
And for the quiet way it brought us
Nearer to our invisible destination.[1]
[1] John O’Donohue, To Bless the Space Between Us: A Book of Blessings (New York: Convergent, 2008), 159-160
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