On Blessing

When I was young, I thought everything around me already existed, whether built order or social realm. But often it was built from nothing by another generation, even the people around me. Much exists as a blessing, by favour, or at least a decision, by will.

Praise, bless, preach, say the Dominicans.  And this is intimately associated with veritas, the truth. Praise results from gratitude; blessing shares benefits; preaching tells the truth: a trinity. Much thanks to give, much change to require. Preaching doesn’t mean I’m telling you I know it all; you can preach by listening alone. You don’t need a great many words to speak truth.

Each of us is a blessing though we may not know it. It can take a lifetime to find you have something that comes into play by itself, that others notice while you remain unaware. Blessing doesn’t need force, or even direction. You are uniquely gifted with an ability which may be quirky and you may never know what it is. You might not even need to find out.

Blessing makes holy, both giving and receiving. The bread is blessed before it is broken; truth is blessed before it is spoken.

On the Blessing of Gay Marriage.

When I was studying at UFT, I took a course called Liturgical Sources. A primary source of liturgy is Blessing. To illustrate the blessing formula, each of the students had to create a blessing for the marriage of Adam and Eve. When it came to my turn, I said, “I’m going to bless the marriage of Adam and Steve.”

            My blessing ran, “Blessed are You, Lord God, Creator of Love, who has caused your Son Jesus Christ to be born of a Virgin, to be our Light and Salvation: we thank you for the love between Adam and Steve, that we celebrate here today, and for the uniting of their families through their union. We pray that you will give them length of days together, in unity, patience, wholeness and joy, that they may serve as an example of true affection, faithfulness, and care, and  through their marriage enrich their families, their friends, and all who come to know them. Through Jesus Christ Our Lord. Amen.

            The Jesuits who were taking this course with me thought this was a fine blessing: they particularly liked the part about uniting the families. Marriage was always a family affair, and this is one reason why gay marriage is so important. The churches should lead the way even if the state resists something ‘different.’ The church should be blessing gay marriages no matter what the state thinks.

            Families like marriages. (They love weddings!) You know who your family is with marriages. For who is my brother’s husband but my brother-in-law? You can have more people in your family. That’s a consideration for some of us. And you can openly acknowledge your family, which is something that more and more straight people want to do and are doing: this is my brother, my sister, his husband, her wife.

            Then there’s the blessing that gay marriage is. Rather like the blessing that any marriage is. You could get to the point of dropping the word ‘gay’ and understand that when two people commit themselves to love and be faithful, to share and support, to protect and serve one another the whole social fabric is strengthened.

            Since I’m supposed to be writing about social justice here, I’ll just mention that of the 2500 annual suicides in this country, as many as one third may be gay, with young persons particularly vulnerable. I’ll never forget a significant churchman saying, one day, that when he was a child a gay couple had visited his parents’ church for a while. They didn’t stay, but, he said, “they meant the world to me, because for the first time in my life I saw that I might have a future.” This man deserves to stand at the altar and exchange his vows with his husband. Every gay child deserves to look forward to having a future: the lack of that perspective (among other factors) can lead to death.

            What is marriage? It is a bond that, as St. Paul says, contains sexual desires and places them in a context of family belonging. It may often (not always) lead to the birth of children who must be cared for, educated and protected in a set of secure relationships. Hence it is a collective, not only an individual, responsibility: all the family is involved.  It is, as the Prayer Book has it, ‘an honourable estate’ if by honour we mean the public acknowledgement of worth and value. Married people are esteemed and respected wherever the family is regarded.  Therefore the church needs, in its pastoral oversight, to bless gay marriages. Blessing gives life, hope, love, light, and value: it is a chief Christian action, Blessing, in the name of Jesus Christ, who blessed all the world.