Blessed

I often say I feel blessed...or that I am so blessed...

Today I got to thinking, what does it mean to be blessed? What am I really saying when I say "I feel blessed"?

I don't think it means that I am more special than anyone else.

The dictionary says that blessed means to be made holy, to be sacred or sanctified, to be held in reverence, set apart. Those definitions don't help me very much.

I read in a blog recently that we are all blessed by God to succeed in all we do. I guess I don't buy that either since I know lots of people who aren't succeeding...whatever that really means. If I subscribe to that definition, it means that the people who are having hard times and don't appear to be succeeding are not a success because they are not doing what God wants them to do....and who really knows what the divine wants from another person? Can we really judge that? Sounds too much like the belief that if you aren't prospering...according to my definition, of course...you aren't close to God. I just can't buy the belief that those who are living in unjust situations, who are needy, who are struggling, are doing so because they are not doing God's will.

So...back to being blessed.
I guess when I say that I am blessed I am acknowleging the gifts of life that I have been given, whether I deserve them or not. I am acknowleging that I am a breathing, loving, human being who is graced every day...every moment... with the stuff of the universe....the air, the rain, the sun, technology, violence, poverty, plenty....and it is up to me to make something out of them. Maybe the real blessing is the ability to freely choose the life I wish to live....with its ups and its downs. Maybe the blessing is just to be and to be thankful for what is.

Last night we were walking in the park and there were

dragonflies EVERYWHERE.  

One landed and took off on Chloe's head and I said, "You were blessed.”

She said "Yeah, that's really cool!  It's like some people are blessed when the priest touches their head,

but Unitarians are blessed by dragonflies.”

Shawne, mother of Chloe, & Chloe Coonfare, age 10