Eric’s Sunday Sermon; “Blessed are Those That....

I wonder if I have a realistic notion of Blessed. Blessed to me means a wonderful thing. But yet in times of trouble I count that as being blessed also. How can a probably fatal illness be blessed? That seems so crazy yet in my life that blessed has come to pass.

I was “suffering” from some really nasty headaches. Debilitating ones. My doc. said he just had to have a look inside. A CT Scan was ordered. Through that they ruled out certain possible causes to my relief. But a strange thing happened. The technicians did an oops with the scan. They went too low. So they got from my gut to my head. Low and behold they saw tumors. Accidentally we got it so early that it did not progress and they could tell by my spine that the headaches were caused by a pull from muscles in the mid back. The technical concepts are interesting but boring.

So I was most assuredly blessed to have the headaches. I was blessed by a mistake. I am blessed to be sitting here writing some five years later. Probably you are not so blessed having to read my dribble. J

Life in these here parts is blessed. No not like someone outside looking in would think so I reckon. We count as blessed that we celebrate. And we say each day “This is the day that the Lord has made, we shall rejoice and be glad in it.” We also say “What? What is this for?” when trouble comes our way. There always seems to be a good reason.

I have yet to figure out lack of cash. Necessities are taken care of but I do not have enough to fly off to Peru on a junket. Maybe a rich uncle I do not know will bless me with 100 billion dollars. But from what I have seen that is seldom a blessing. Maybe Lord just a small fortune.

What would happen to me if I did not have to work at life? I think I would cause problems just to fix them. I wonder if my wife would become fat if all she did was sit around and spend money.

I wonder what being blessed really means. Let us take an Eric look at what they call the Beatitudes.

Blessed are the poor for they shall inherit something. No I am not doing the Beatitudes here but if you have never read them you are missing out. The bulk of what they call the Sermon on the Mount. My favorite version is Matthew 5:1-7:27. As you can see from this first line I totally mix and match for our purposes.

So back to the poor getting their fair share. Normally we think about this as poor of spirit. But it seems to work both ways. Seems that it is not poor or rich that is blessed but what we do with our situation that can be blessed. Now I am the richest man in the spirit that I know. Just a natural fact. So am I so blessed here that I used up all my scheckles? Tell you the truth, that would be fine by me, somebody else probably needs those love coins more than I.

I just have never gotten it about the meek getting most of God’s estate by way of inheritance. The last time anyone ever even had a back alley thought of me being “meek” I was in diapers and even that is a stretch. I would have to assume I am cut out of the will. But there is more to come. Maybe I can redeem my coupons somewhere else.

Now I can get this one. If you mourn you will be comforted. Don’t look at me. If you are mourning I will comfort you. Anything else just seems all sticky and wrong. Giving someone comfort in my mind is almost selfish because it makes you feel so right on. Maybe the comforters get theirs here and those that need it get it later. Did you know that “comforter” relates to a shepherd’s staff that he guides sheep with? Interesting in context.

So you get all blessed if you hunger and thirst. Of course that is relating to the good and moral and righteous. Fair enough. I do not do so well here as I do not hunger and thirst for it but rather just eat and drink of it. Again probably a case of me getting mine early. This is starting to look like I am blessed here. So then what?

You get the holy of holies knocked out of you because you believe in God and espouse it. They call it persecution. And then you get your reward. Now I am down with that. If you get all trashed and beat to the ends, you deserve a kingdom. But the rub is that you have to do it for the right reason. Go ahead, be my guest and figure that one out on the day to day.

So we come back around to the notion of being blessed. Or if something is a blessing. And we get that “bles(t)” is one thing and bless(ed) another. But we see they are not so different. For if we are truly blessed then we are blessed. Yes it is one of those words. I do not make this stuff up.

Well the overall point is that we who read this are blessed. I like the term “endowed”. Like it is in us and not of us and not deserved.

I like this one; Blessed are those that give a good damn about others. How about; If you love your love will be a blessing on others who will then bless others with your love. I wonder if the evil in the world is something that blocks that blessed love from flowing. But I do not buy into that much as it seems that no matter the boulders placed in the flow of love, it finds a way to keep flowing. You to me and me to she and a cascade of love may be dammed for a moment but the waters of love will soon overflow.

I got this and I gots that. I need to eat less and not more. I try to work hard but truth be told I have to work out to keep my girlish figure. Some say I am near a “poverty line”. What are they talking about? Doesn’t it seem things are a bit skewed. I worry about, well not worry but wonder, about all my blessings and wonder what rich people do. Do they go to the neighbor for a cup of flour?

I look at exactly the way it is now. Children the most. Somehow through all my mistakes I got here. And I love where I am at. Oh this is no bed of roses except maybe including the thorns. But wow oh wow is this a blessed life. Now that makes no sense. So I guess that being blessed is just a free unearned gift. In my mind better than Christmas.

Seems to me we should pass it on. In love we can bless another and perhaps that is the greatest blessing of all.