David Steindl-Rast - 99 Blessings: An Invitation to Life

Benediction. I. Title. II. Title:
Ninety-nine blessings.
BL560.S75 2013
242.8dc23 2012031083 eISBN: 978-0-385-34750-1 Jacket design by Jessie Bright v3.1 This little book is dedicated to
all things, plants, animals,
humans, and angels
that made me blessed
and able to bless.

Blessing, rightly understood, is the invisible bloodstream pulsating through the universealive and life-giving. Just to live is holy, says the great Jewish sage Abraham Joshua Heschel. Just to be is a blessing. Bless what there is, for being. Whatever it be, bless it because it exists; you need no other reason. H. H.

Auden summarizes the singular command with which the universe confronts us humans. Each page of this book invites you in a different way to rise to this challenge and bless what there is for being. For three months or so, I wrote these blessings downone each dayblessing whatever happened to come to my mind, from insects to the Internet, from friendship to fresh linen. I resisted the temptation to improve them later; they stand here as they flowed from my pen. You might open the book at random and let yourself be surprised, or you might read these blessingsmaybe one a dayin the order in which they were written. You might want to check the index of keywords and pick the blessing you need at the moment.

I wish for you that you become aware of how greatly you yourself are blessed and eager to pass your blessings on. Passing them on is what counts. Blessings are life-giving only as long as we pass them on. The waters of the river Jordan can teach us much about blessing: Fresh and refreshing, they leap down from the Lebanon Mountains, fill the Sea of Galilee to the brim, and make its shores an image of Paradise. Gardens, vineyards, and orchards are heavy with fruit and produce, and the lake itself teems with fish. Then these waters flow on, the Jordan continues, ending in the Dead Sea.

What a difference here: The shores are barren desert, and no fish can survive in the briny water. But isnt it the same water? Yes, is the answer, indeed, it is the same water of blessing. But where blessing flows in and passes on, everything comes alive; where it flows only in and stops, it stagnates. This accounts for the pattern of each blessing in this little book, first expressing delight in a blessing received, following with a resolution to pass it on. And this pattern is repeated over and over. Repetition is the way time mirrors the eternal Now.