RE: [HoB/D] Blessings

[Louie Crew [mailto:lcrew@andromeda.rutgers.edu]]

-----Original Message-----
Sent: Tuesday, October 04, 2005 5:11 PM

It has always seemed to me that we bless people and things, shrimp fleets
and pets, homes or crosses, but that we do not bless any human relationship
except matrimony. 

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XXXXXX, you are missing out on some of the major wonders God wants us 
to experience.

When I bless others I find that the blessing always comes back to me
manifold.   In an important sense, I can never give a blessing "away."  It
stays alive.

God is not stingy and does not want us to be.

We are not called to be God's embosser, deciding who is and is not worthy of
God's blessing.  Those who try set themselves up for an agenda that will cut
them  off from the joy God intends for them.

Occasionally some have told me at General Convention that they moved out of
the line so as not to have to take communion from the same cup or to receive
the bread or wine from my hands.  I am always amazed by their sadness.  It
seems important for them not only to come to their conclusions but also to
let me know their conclusions, as if I am sitting around waiting for their
imprimatur.  I'm not.  I have been baptized.  I grieve that they do not know
the blessing that God wants to give to us all.

God has already, once and for all, at Calvary put all sin, known and
unknown, as far as the East is from the West.   She invites us to do the
same and to join Her in love that is prodigal and promiscuous.  She loves
and blesses us all, in myriads of relationships.

We cannot expect to understand God's blessings until we learn to bless one
another and to receive God's blessings from those least like ourselves.  God
uses their faces all the time.

Rejoice!  God loves you and Louis just as much as God loves Ernest and me,
and we are very happy that the two of you are back home again.

L.
Louie Crew
Chair of the Newark Deputation.  Member of Executive Council.