Into the Mystery: A Blessing for Peg + Chuck
Photo by Marc Rerucha Borges © Genesis+Art
Orlando, Florida
In this time of leave-taking, I am remembering some words that were part of the preface to the blessing I composed for Peg and Chuck’s installation as directors. I commented that Peg, Chuck, and Holden Village had a sense of some of the reasons they had been called to this place and why you said yes to each other. I went on to write, “I have a hunch that as these years unfold, you will learn that you have said yes to each other also for reasons you can hardly imagine today, reasons that will be revealed only as you travel together into the mystery that lies ahead.”
Reasons we could hardly imagine, indeed. On this far threshold that lies worlds away from that day of installation, we could find ourselves tempted to speak of Peg and Chuck’s service at Holden as being bracketed by disasters: beginning in fire, ending in pandemic, with plenty of other astonishing events in between that no one could have envisioned. Yet even as we acknowledge the immense challenges that met Peg, Chuck, and the Holden community, I think it is more accurate to speak of their tenure as being bookended by blessings—that, in fact, what has been most consistent throughout their tenure is the spirit of blessing they brought to their vocation here, the blessing they have embodied, the blessing that will remain as they leave, the blessing that even now is making way for new blessings to take root amid the mystery that is continually unfolding for Holden.
As we welcomed Peg and Chuck with a blessing, so may we send them, seeing and naming the blessing they have been among us.
Into the Mystery
A Sending Blessing for Peg + Chuck
Today
let us say
we behold.
Today
let us say
we see you—
that we know
the blessing
you have brought here,
the blessing
you have been here,
the blessing
you have breathed into
this place with
your fierce devotion
and steady love,
your willingness
to keep opening your heart
to the mystery,
to keep finding its pulse,
to keep moving
in a cadence of presence
through this wild landscape
of chaos and grace.
Today
let us say
that every word
of this blessing
is a hand
reaching out to you
across the distance,
that every line
is part of a litany
of voices raised for you
in gladness and
thanksgiving,
in benediction
and release.
Today
let us say
we are sending you on,
singing praise
for your heart
that will open, close,
open again
and again,
forever altered
but keeping its cadence still
as you enter ever deeper
into the mystery
that draws you toward home,
returning by
another way.
— Jan Richardson
Into the Mystery: A Sending Blessing for Peg + Chuck
© Jan Richardson
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