Before you were conceived in the womb, I knew you.
Psalm 137
In the beginning, God imagined you. You would be unique in the chain of life, with a great heart and with a special touch. You would have the possibility to scale the heights and to paint new colours. You would do it in your own time and at your own pace.
Many of my friends have embraced or are about to embrace a significant new decade! I’m drawn to rejoice with them and for them!
Yes, no doubt about it, birthdays need to be celebrated. Why? Because to celebrate a birthday means to say to someone: “Thank you for being you”. It is not about saying: “Thank you for what you do or achieve”. No, we say: “Thank you for being born and being with us: “thank you for the gift that you are.”
Aren’t birthdays an invitation to all of us to celebrate the present?
They are certainly not about bemoaning the past or anxiously speculating about the future, but about celebrating the goodness of life – and that despite the many challenges of our later years!
So, in that spirit, I believe we really need to celebrate birthdays every day. How? By showing kindness, gentleness, appreciation, gratitude, warmth, compassion…
For Your Birthday
Blessed be the mind that dreamed the day
the blueprint of your life
would begin to glow on earth,
illuminating all the faces and voices
that would arrive to invite
your soul to growth.
Praised be your father and mother
who loved you before you were;
and trusted to call you here
with no idea who you would be.
Blessed be those who have loved you
into becoming who you were meant to be,
Blessed be those who have crossed your life
with dark gifts of hurt and loss
that have helped to school your mind
in the art of disappointment.
When desolation surrounded you,
Blessed be those who looked for you
and found you, their kind hands
urgent to open a blue window
in the grey wall formed around you.
John O ‘Donohue
Sonas agus beannachtai na blians nua to all who celebrate a significant new decade or new year at this time!
B. ‘O S.