Sunday, September 1, 2013

Blessing: May God take your hearts and set them on fire

This morning I used a blessing at the end of our 10 am service that I hadn't used before. I learned it from a priest friend, Liz Jones, who lives in Mississippi. She says the author is unknown (other than the first two lines from the Bible), and so it "belongs to the world." It's known down in Mississippi as "Liz's Blessing." Some asked me for it after church today, so here is Liz's Blessing:
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May the Lord Bless you and keep you. 
May the Lord make his face to shine upon you and be gracious unto you. 
May God give you grace not to sell yourselves short, 
Grace to risk something big for something good, 
Grace to remember that the world is now too dangerous for anything but truth, and too small for anything but love. 
May God take your minds and think through them. 
May God take your lips and speak through them. 
May God take your hands and work through them. 
May God take your hearts and set them on fire.
 

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

The author of this lovely benediction (except for scripture) is the late Rev. William Sloane Coffin.