What a song to have as a benediction on the Sunday of my leave-taking! The tune is as comforting as the words. And these words aren’t precise because I couldn’t find the lyrics; try as I might, but the exploration lead me through a feast of Irish blessings and Celtic writings. Even viewing on my small itouch screen, page after page opened as more than a simple coincidence and the words grew larger than life. A word appearing repeatedly is the Celtic term, Peregrinatio describing a seeking, quest, adventure, or wandering to the self and God. Esther De Waal, claims that peregrinatio is “ultimately a journey...to find the place of my resurrection, the resurrected self, the self that I might hope to be, to become, the true self in Christ.”God’s Gospel of light shall keep you
God’s Gospel shall shelter you
From harm, malice, and evil and from all distress
Christ shall himself shepherd you…
And wherever you may travel
He’ll be with youBless to me O Lord the earth under my foot
Bless the path on which I wander
Bless to me O Lord the things that I desire
Bless to me O God my pastBless to me O God the thoughts filling my mind
Bless my yearning and my longing
Bless to me O God the hope deep in my heart
Bless my seeing and my eyes…And wherever you may travel
God will be with you
-Journey Prayers
And I thought I was on a simple leave of wide-eyed wonder, of selfish independence, and of hope-filled discovery! The purpose is supposed to be one of going out; I never suggested it was a pilgrimage to the inner world. Buy the extra-life batteries for this dark hole!
As I’ve mentioned, for one who can fret over every small decision of right or left, fresh or frozen, red or blue, this is one of the surest decisions I can remember. And with no vacillation, still waves of affirmation continue. I accidently mistyped the word God – and on reading back what was in its place?
A BLESSING
Blessed be the longing that brought you here
and that quickens your soul with wonder.
May you have the courage to befriend your eternal longing.
May you enjoy the critical and creative companionship
of the question “Who am I?”
and may it brighten your longing.
May a secret Providence guide your thought
and shelter your feeling.
May your mind inhabit your life with the same sureness
with which your body belongs to the world.
May the sense of something absent enlarge your life.
May your soul be as free as the ever-new waves of the sea.
May you succumb to the danger of growth.
May you live in the neighbourhood of wonder.
May you belong to love with the wildness of Dance.
May you know that you are ever embraced
in the kind circle of God.
Blessed be the longing that brought you here
and that quickens your soul with wonder.
May you have the courage to befriend your eternal longing.
May you enjoy the critical and creative companionship
of the question “Who am I?”
and may it brighten your longing.
May a secret Providence guide your thought
and shelter your feeling.
May your mind inhabit your life with the same sureness
with which your body belongs to the world.
May the sense of something absent enlarge your life.
May your soul be as free as the ever-new waves of the sea.
May you succumb to the danger of growth.
May you live in the neighbourhood of wonder.
May you belong to love with the wildness of Dance.
May you know that you are ever embraced
in the kind circle of God.
The word? Go
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