A time for Blessing

Like the joy of the sea coming home to shore,

May the relief of laughter rinse through your soul.

As the wind loves to call things to dance,

May your gravity by lightened by grace.

Like the dignity of moonlight restoring the earth,

May your thoughts incline with reverence and respect.

As water takes whatever shape it is in,

So free may you be about who you become.

As silence smiles on the other side of what's said,

May your sense of irony bring perspective.

As time remains free of all that it frames,

May your mind stay clear of all it names.

May your prayer of listening deepen enough

to hear in the depths the laughter of god.”

― John O'Donohue, To Bless the Space Between Us: A Book of Blessings

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it is a time for blessing

not a time for hating

and cursing

not a time for judging

and excluding

not a time to expend our limited

energy on what separates

but a time for blessing

for seeing with the eyes of compassion

for reaching forth

with hearts full

and hands ready to heal

it is a time for listening

to hear not only the cry of the heart

as it issues forth from anguished souls

but for sacred laughter

as it emerges from

a child of God