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    Ordinary Blessings: Prayers, Poems, and Meditations for Everyday Life
    Ordinary Blessings: Prayers, Poems, and Meditations for Everyday Life
    Ordinary Blessings: Prayers, Poems, and Meditations for Everyday Life
    Ebook147 pages36 minutes

    Ordinary Blessings: Prayers, Poems, and Meditations for Everyday Life

    By Meta Herrick Carlson

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    About this ebook

    The ordinary moments of life can be sacred, if we simply take a moment to notice. This collection of prayers, poems, and meditations offers a brief respite from the hectic, harried pace of our days. Open it when the spirit moves you or when the spirit feels distant--the words will be here to inspire, calm, and encourage you either way.

    From gifted poet and empathetic pastor Meta Herrick Carlson, Ordinary Blessings collects blessings for loving yourself, enduring hard things, authenticity, living with others, and the rhythms of each day. Pause, take a deep breath, and open these pages to find that you've been standing on holy ground all along.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherFortress Press
    Release dateFeb 11, 2020
    ISBN9781506450629

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      Book preview

      Ordinary Blessings - Meta Herrick Carlson

      Acknowledgments

      PREFACE

      I write because I don’t know what I think

      until I read what I say.

      —Flannery O’Connor

      I’ve always been an external processor, the written word able to access emotions and faith that can’t find another way out. And I’ve always been pretty decent at a bunch of things, but not excellent at a specific thing.

      Imagine you’re playing Go Fish. Everyone else has a few cards, and you have half the deck fanned out in front of your face. Or you’re a high-school letter jacket filled with honorable-mention patches. That hand, that jacket, is me: a little bit of everything and happy to be in the running.

      These things play out in my vocations, too.

      I’m a parish pastor, which means I’m pretty decent at a bunch of things (like preaching good news, comforting the dying, feeding the hungry, fundraising for Jesus, and plunging toilets in a pinch). I’m a generalist, always ready to connect folks to other people who are trained experts or similarly curious.

      I’m a parent of three, which means I get to make the rules, write the charts, and be the boss. Actually, I’m still working toward that dictatorship model. This parenting thing is hard, and I spend most of my time reacting to their frustrating and fantastic antics. I recently broke the news to my son that I’ve never had an eight year old before, and I’m learning as I go. He responded in a deadpan tone, I think that’s pretty obvious, Mom.

      I’m a partner to a steady and charming person named Matt. Turns out he thinks all the ordinary, pretty decent stuff about me is spectacular. Since I’m very impressionable, I’ve started to think so, too. And in embracing my ordinary life, I’ve realized how much God also delights in these things.

      I started writing blessings, poems, and prayers for the ordinary stuff a few years ago and realized the more I wrote, the more I needed them. It feels good and holy to notice God’s attention to the regular, to consider God’s investment in the little moments that matter to my daily life, to bless the pretty decent things and call them good.

      My prayer is that you will discover a few written words in here that help you access your emotions and faith in a new way. And, since I’m no expert at this, I hope you’ll join me in finding more words and ways to bless the ordinary.

      BLESSINGS FOR EVERYDAY LIFE

      For Home

      I give thanks for this space

      thoroughly lived in—

      the clutter and crumbs,

      laundry piled high,

      a door to close and lock,

      the wily weeds woven into the lawn.

      I am glad for that which is mine to tend—

      a bookshelf and bedroom,

      apartment or acre.

      I will keep it so that my soul

      is well lived and examined here,

      gentle and enough.

      These walls watch me

      rehearse declarations that

      I take up space.

      I belong.

      I am here.

      For Morning Anxiety

      Don’t get up quite yet.

      First blink and breathe

      and believe

      you are fiercely loved.

      Do not be fooled

      by the list that hunts you down

      each dawn.

      You are called to a few things,

      not all the things.

      Be still until you hear

      the sacred silence whisper,

      "Underneath the hustle

      and the bundle of nerves

      that thing

      you are desperate to earn

      has already been declared."

      And then rise like the sun,

      one shade of sky at a time.

      For Getting Dressed

      They are just clothes, not molds.

      These fabrics and styles

      could never fold

      the fullness of your bright body

      and personhood

      into a simple-sized container.

      So tailor and hem or thrift knowing

      you are fearfully and wonderfully made

      for more than fitting in

      between pockets and seams.

      May you choose clothes that help you

      present yourself to world

      free from fear or shame, wrapping you in

      sturdy confidence and personal flare

      that celebrate whoever

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