Sometimes life can be one big steamy, stinking pile of horse S#!+! I’m just saying. You all know it to be true. We all have those periods in our lives that just seem to rain cat-piss and in those moments it appears to us that our very being is cursed. Do you ever feel like that? Does it ever seem to you that there is a cloud and it is straight over your head and yours only?
God knows I have felt like that. Henri Nouwen reflected that…
It is an ongoing temptation to think of ourselves as living under a curse. The loss of a friend, an illness, an accident, a natural disaster, a war, or any failure can make us quickly think that we are no good and are being punished. This temptation to think of our lives as full of curses is even greater when all the media present us day after day with stories about human misery.
But as a people of faith who follow the Resurrected Christ, we are reminded that we are a people of hope. What is more, Jesus of Nazareth lived in a manner that always emphasized blessing and not cursing. Jesus in his life in fact declared that the weak and the vulnerable are those who are blessed. He emphasized that God favours those who are weak. Blessed are those who grieve, blessed are those who are poor in spirit, blessed are those who hunger and thirst, blessed are the persecuted. He declared all of this not just in his words but in his witness. He show us the Way. We are the people of the Way… we follow in his footsteps. This means that we can choose the blessings that are placed before us… even in the midst of our suffering, and that we can pass them on to others. As Nouwen puts it,
Jesus came to bless us, not to curse us. But we must choose to receive that blessing and hand it on to others. Blessings and curses are always placed in front of us. We are free to choose. God says, Choose the blessings!
So I invite us all to consider how we may receive the blessing and how we may pass that on to others.
It's Just Kevin's Corner 
Leave a Reply