The Blessing Way
By Robert Drake San Francisco Theological Seminary M.Div.
Resident Chaplain Intern, UCSF Medical Center
Psalm 41
Psalm 41 speaks to us of the ways God blesses us, of how we are nurtured and sustained, and of how we bless ourselves and others through right actions and being in balance in with God’s Way in the world. On this Lenten day I invite us to consider blessings in the context of another ancient culture – the Navajo of the Southwest United States, who call themselves Dineh (“The People”).
One of the Dineh’s sacred ceremonies is called The Blessing Way. It is a religious ceremony, but it is also a way of being in the world. Blessing Way is meant to awaken a person to balance and harmony – to the natural order of the world as God planned it (hozho), and to help us to walk in this Way of Beauty through life. We are protected and served, and we protect and serve others best, when we are in balance in a way of blessing. Blessing requires respect and being respected: respecting God and God’s ways and respecting our own place in the natural order, being true to that order and to our place in that order and to our gifts.
Blessing Way involves knowledge of good and evil as we awaken to God’s plan – the plan of Love.In the wisdom of the Blessing Way, we strive to continually acquire and use knowledge of the way of harmony, loving and blessing, and serving love to the best of our abilities while on Earth. Once we awaken to the natural order – to God’s plan, to the Blessing that Life Is, we begin living the loving way, the Blessing Way. We are blessed as we begin to bless others with the expression of our own true nature.
When we start making choices that serve God through love we are blessed by being as God meant us to be. On the Blessing Way we stop destroying and begin blessing in “reverent revolution of life-affirming choices.”¹ We are blessed and sustained as we begin to bless and sustain others through right choices, right actions, and right relationship to God – much as the Psalmist writes in Psalm 41.
Today, I invite us to share in God’s Blessing Way through remembering that we are all, already on The Way. When we forget this we so forget our blessings, and also our selves.
