Dear Ones of St. Columba's,

This Sunday we are going to bless our gardens and our bees. Every time our faithful altar guild replace the water in our baptismal font, Portia leaves a sticky note on my office door that reads "new water in font, please bless." Later this week I'm going to meet with one of you about blessing a new home. Each Sunday there are some among us who choose to come forward for communion with hands crossed, receiving a blessing instead. A couple Sundays ago when Mother Meghan brought her new baby boy to church for the first time, we blessed him. Each night after I tuck my girls into bed, I trace the symbol of the cross on their foreheads and say a blessing.

But, what is a blessing? Why do we ask for them, say them, give them to the people, places, projects, and relationships we cherish the most?

I am empowered to bless on behalf of the church (which is you, by the way!), which is to say that in my role as priest I get to lift up the blessings of love, forgiveness, generosity, and healing that Jesus empowered all his followers to carry with them and make real in the world. When a priest or bishop gives a blessing on behalf of the church to a person, we are recognizing that person's potential as a child of God to bear forth into the world God's love, healing, forgiveness, generosity, and hope. When we bless a marriage, we are blessing a union of two people to this end, as well. When a parent blesses a child, they are recognizing God's hand, and image, imprinted in their beloved little one.

And, this Sunday, when we bless our garden project, and our bees, and our community garden, we will be recognizing each of these places in our hearts and on our land as sites of promise, little incarnations of community that represent the love, healing, forgiveness, and generosity of God.

Our garden project is a work of love for those among us who have died and for all of us who live and love here, who will worship, play, grow things, and move closer to God through this space. It is also a work of generosity, where we will grow food for hungry neighbors.

Our community garden is a work of love, hope, and welcome for new neighbors who have survived loss, and still have the will to live, grow, and plant.

Our bees are a work of love, hope, and perhaps forgiveness, as we nurture and shelter these special beings whose existence is threatened by humans who don't care for our earth, and whose work is key to feeding us all. 

We bless because we are made to bless on behalf of God - not just in the way of ritual and liturgy, but also in how we live. We are blessed by being image bearers of God, and when we ask God's blessing on spaces and people and relationship and bread and wine, we are blessed. We carry these blessings with us into the world, and we are called to become them, to become blessings of love, hope, forgiveness, generosity, and healing ourselves.

The blessing of God Almighty, the one who knows you and loves you and made you, be with you now and forevermore.

Amen.

-Alissa