Blessed are they …

Before I had my morning coffee, I glanced at today’s reading … and somewhere in the back of my mind, I felt a nudge.  I remembered that I’d once assigned a quick writing practice to the Stepping Stones group that meets at Mount Saviour Monastery weekly, on a week when we observed the life and death of Dr. Martin Luther King. 

I asked them..  who do you see today, as the ‘blessed’ ones?  And gave them 15 minutes to write.   In the silence that followed, all that could be heard was .. tick, tick, tick.  And that sound often feels like a countdown to something shattering … and in a way it was.  

This was my writing … 

Blessed are they with ties that bind

For they shall be rooted 

Blessed are they who stare death in the face 

For they learn to live in the moment

Blessed are the lonely 

for they value community

Blessed are they  who face hardships

For they learn to be grow

Blessed are  they who face enemies

For they discover who their allies are

Blessed are they who share the little they have 

For they will experience abundance

Blessed are they who fall down again and again 

for they learn how to get up and begin again

~~~

Then today at Mass, after the reading, the priest mentioned that The Beatitudes can act as stepping stones on our paths to growth.

If you where to write your Beatitudes, what would they be?