This blessing can be heard coming from a long way off.
This blessing is making its steady way up the road toward you.
This blessing blooms in the throats of women,
springs from the hearts of men,
tumbles out of the mouths of children.
This blessing is stitched into the seams of the cloaks that line the road,
etched into the branches that trace the path,
echoes in the breathing of the willing colt,
the click of the donkey’s hoof against the stones.
Something is rising beneath this blessing.
Something will try to drown it out.
But this blessing cannot be turned back,
cannot be made to still its voice,
cannot cease to sing its praise
of the One who comes along the way it makes.
—Jan Richardson
from Circle of Grace: A Book of Blessings for the Seasons
Ma te Atua koe e manaaki i ngā wā katoa
“May God bless you always”
Mary Pepping
Half Moon Bay
