beautiful monsters

words to say...

Sometimes I feel really uncomfortable using words that were used in the church I went to as a teenager. Words like “worship”, which carries connotations of the worship team singing soppy pop songs with lyrics like “Jesus, lover of my soul, Jesus, I will never let you go… I love you, I need you… Though my world may fall, I’ll never let you go…” while everyone closed their eyes or cried or waved their arms ecstatically.

I want to reclaim some of the words. I want to somehow shake away all the negative connotations and use them again without cringing.

I’m starting with the word “blessing”.

The word blessing will no longer be associated with a male God bestowing divine favour. It will not have connotations of a “father” who will “shower” me with these blessings if I pray enough, read the bible enough, close my eyes and wave my hands around ecstatically. It will no longer remind me of people laying their hands on someone and praying “Father Lord I just really pray Lord that you will really bless her and you will just touch her Lord, and really just bless her father Lord with the power of your love.” It will no longer make me think of a “Lord” giving members of the worship team enviable gifts like “tongues” or being “slain in the spirit”.

Instead the word blessing will describe the loveliness and wonder of things that can’t really be described or explained with “I’m so lucky”.

Blessing will now be associated with:
The almost-invisible beauty of a spider web trembling between two twigs.
Witnessing the first time a baby learns to make a mark with a crayon on paper, and the utter delight that bursts from her when people clap and cheer at her success.
Sun that makes the hills glow golden against the grey sky, that dances over water, that shines through leaves like stained glass.

And love.
Love that comes “like a sudden flight of birds / from earth to heaven after rain.”*
Love that hums through every day like a cello string that keeps singing after the bow is lifted.
Love that opens like a flower to the sun.
Love that fills each day with emotions that can only be described in the cheesiest of clichés.
Love that is like coming home, that is like the place to turn to, when tears well up, when tiredness overwhelms, when joy needs to be shared.
Love that is constantly surprising, like the first glimpse of spring flowers bursting into the world…and yet so comfortable, like the pages of a well read book that have faced each other for years, that make no sense on their own, but together a story flows through them.

I feel so blessed.

Posted by Fionnaigh at October 30, 2007 04:59 PM | TrackBack