‽istis reclaims a blessing (weekending February 27th 2021)
In the anniversary week of the writing
of the across-the-world-spreading Christian worship song ‘The Blessing’, ‽istis
ponders matters temporal and spiritual, secular and sacred…
The song (written by Chris Brown, Cody
Carnes, Kari Jobe and Steven Furtick in late February 2020) began to ripple out
from the US and across the globe following a service at Elevation Church,
Ballantyne campus on March 1st 2020.[i] In its first week there were apparently
12,000 downloads and 1.3m streamings. It has won the 2020 GMA Dove Awards for
‘Worship Recorded Song of the Year’ and has a Grammy Award nomination for ‘Best
Christian Contemporary Music Performance Song’ 2021.
Within weeks the first of many nation-specific
versions was recorded and now people in many countries[ii],
churches and groups have their own version often with multiple voices brought
together through technology that has come into its own hosting ‘virtual’ meetings, lessons, family
gatherings and services:
And ‘Blessings’ now flood the world!
But ‽istis
wonders whether there might be other versions to be written of this and also of many, many songs of worship; songs of faith; hymns, anthems, chorales and
oratorios - rooted in and expressing a Christian tradition (and perhaps other
faith traditions)?
What might it mean, for example, if
there was a version of 'The Blessing' that went something like this:
We bless you and keep you.
May our face shine upon you and be
gracious to you.
We turn our face toward you and give
you peace.
Amen, amen, amen[iii]…
May our favor be upon you and a
thousand generations, your family and your children and their children and
their children.
May our presence go before you and
behind you and beside you, all around you and within you.
We are with you, we are with you.
In the morning, in the evening, in
your coming and your going, in your weeping and rejoicing
We are for you, we are for you, we are
for you…
Changes minimal, but perhaps
representing a significant shift in focus -
·
from: external,
other, outside, exogenous, heavenly
·
to: here,
us/we/you (singular or plural), endogenous, earthly.
And ‽istis
wonders whether there may be at least two routes to this re-framing:
‽
from a Christian/faith perspective
emphasising a social gospel: “Christ has no body now but yours. No hands, no
feet on earth but yours. Yours are the eyes through which he looks compassion
on this world. Yours are the feet with which he walks to do good. Yours are the
hands through which he blesses all the world. Yours are the hands, yours are
the feet, yours are the eyes, you are his body. Christ has no body now on earth
but yours.” St Theresa of Avila[iv].
And if you want your Christian Bible reference - possibly more Matthew 25 v
31-46 than John 3 v 16?
‽
from a sacred humanism or sacred
world-ism or Mother Earth-ism or Gaia-ism perspective; where we together
are perhaps enough; where we recognise that I and we is ‘us’, that we are responsible,
we are connected, linked and co-dependent - sacredly webbed with all that lives
and moves and has being, has life and breath and comprises ‘spaceship Earth’ in
its unique extraordinariness and green-blue precious jewelness in a vast, vast
universe?
Two
routes, one destination?: “…do
good: we will meet one another there.” Pope Francis (2013)[v]
And so, across the globe (wherever ‘The Blessing’ has been heard, covered or claimed - and also wherever it is yet to reach) what if we were really to bless each other, and turn our face to see every one and all, and do and be to every us and each other individually and collectively without exclusion...? And what if we were to play and sing and say:
·
“I/we bless you”
·
“I/we will keep
you”
·
“I/we will be
gracious to you”
·
“I/we will turn my/our
face to you”
·
“I/we will give
you peace”
·
“My/our favour
will be upon you and your family across the generations”
·
“I/we will go
before you and behind you and beside you, all around you - in the morning, in
the evening, in your coming and your going, in your weeping and rejoicing”
· “I am/we are for you…”
… well, just imagine how different the world could be - here, now on earth whether or not that may also be as it is in heaven.
© Pistis
NB: further reflections and comments
linked to this week’s theme and past blog
entries to be found on Twitter: replies, retweets (which don’t necessarily
indicate approval, sometimes the very opposite!) and ‘likes’:
@Pistis_wonders
[ii] Germany,
Brazil, UK, an Haitian Creole version, a continent wide Latin America version,
Zimbabwe (a favourite), the Hawaiian Islands, Malaysia, China, Tamil version, a
Canadian churches version, Sweden, the Arab World version, versions in Aoterea
(another favourite), Nigeria, South Africa, Ghana, India, Lebanon, the Greater
Middle East version and on…
[iii]
So be it… certainly, I verify, I agree,
I concur…
