I open my heart’s scrapbook.
I bless every picture, every page:
the carefully posed triumphs,
the candid moments,
the ugly ones (how did they get in there?),
the scraps of memories, fond and not so.
I bless them all. Each is part of the tale.
The blessings I remember, those are easy.
I hold them up to the light and say thank you.
The blessings I don’t remember, never noticed:
those, too.
The wounds, the bent places, the purple scars,
the lumps and limps
I take up in my arms and I kiss them,
for they belong, invisibly laden,
still teaching, still unfolding.
The times when fear overpowered love,
when the child overwhelmed the adult,
the mistakes, the terrors,
the little tender weak places that still tremble,
still fall to their knees—
each is a page in the story.
Each I take in my hands and bless:
holy, holy,
mystery…
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Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
September 21, 2020