BLESSING IN THE BEGINNING

INTO RELATIONSHIP

Life be in my speech, Sense in what I say, The bloom of cherries on my lips, Till I come back again. The love Christ Jesus gave Be filling every heart for me, The love Christ Jesus gave Filling me for every one.

TRADITIONAL SCOTTISH BLESSING, NINE TEENTH CENTURY

There are conversations that hang in the air. Some words dissipate like vapor, but others linger, their full force felt weeks, months, or even years later, as they settle in our minds and hearts. Having taken up residence, they push us into unexplored territories. Some conversations acquire a life all their own. One such conversation launched my search to understand the meaning of blessing.

I remember the clear winter day and the aching of the ash-colored branches stoic in the cold outside my apartment. I remember the cast of light slanting through the windows and the crisp outlines of buildings framing the glittering waters of the Bosporus, the strait that divides Europe and Asia and runs through the heart of Istanbul, Turkey. And I remember the earnest look of delight on my friend's bright face as we talked about my sister and her new baby.

We sat on my couch, relaxed in faded jeans and sock feet. As we chatted in Turkish, I sensed my friend's earnest joy — she longed to see the baby, to speak with my sister, to wish her well, to bless her. I soon found myself pushing aside delicate, tulip-shaped chai glasses to make space for my laptop on the coffee table in front of us so that we could video chat on Skype.

Just before we called, my friend paused. She wasn't confident she would say the right thing. So she asked me what to say in English to someone who's just had a baby. I replied matter-of-factly, "We say, 'Congratulations.'"

My Muslim friend looked dubious. "No," she pressed, "I mean what do Christians say as a blessing?"

I paused, bewildered by the pointedness of her question. I repeated, "Honestly, we just say, 'Congratulations.'"

Her brow knit, betraying her frustration. I could see disappointment hovering in her eyes. "You say congratulations all the time," she observed. "'Congratulations' isn't a blessing."

She was right. "Congratulations" isn't a blessing.

In Turkish, the gracious thing to say on the occasion of the birth of a baby is Anali babali büyütsün. Roughly translated, the words mean, "May you grow up together with your mother and father." The blessing conveyed by that concise phrase is magnificent. So much good is expressed by a simple, compact blessing. The phrase efficiently encapsulates a prayer for the health and protection of the baby, for the long life of the mother and father, and for the integrity of the family. No wonder "Congratulations" was a disappointment.

I certainly don't mean to say that "Congratulations" is a bad sentiment; it's just a thin one. Congratulations, a word with Latin roots and a Middle English pedigree, means that I share your joy, I give thanks with you. Celebrating with friends and rejoicing with those who rejoice is vital; it's a basic minimum for any relationship. But "Congratulations" is of the moment — it references only how I'm feeling now; it doesn't reach forward into what will be, into the good I hope to see unfold in the future. And it doesn't invite God to be present in our lives by expressing what he may accomplish in the days to come.

The future is the province of blessing. Blessings are prayers with the horizon in view. They communicate good that I long to see realized in your life, and they acknowledge, implicitly, that God alone is capable of accomplishing that good. Blessings carry us from the present moment into future grace. "Blessing ..." reflects the poet John O'Donohue, "animates on the deepest threshold between being and becoming."

While the conversation with my Turkish friend was simmering in my mind, I was learning to do life with my family in one of the most storied cities in the world — Istanbul, Turkey. I've lived most of the last twenty years overseas — in Italy, Bulgaria, Cyprus, and most recently, Turkey. Crossing cultures shakes me out of familiar, comfortable patterns of speaking and thinking, challenging me to acquire new ways of expressing myself that sometimes cast a clarifying light on the world.

As I was blundering my way through learning Turkish, I began to realize that many basic phrases I was using every day were simple blessings. To a baker making a traditional pastry: Elinize saglik, "Health to your hands." To a neighbor coming down with a cold: Geçmis olsun, "May it pass." To a bride at her wedding: Bir yastikta kocayin, "May you sleep together on the same pillow." To a student beginning the school year: Hayirli olsun, "May it be successful." To a friend leaving on a long drive: Yolun açik olsun, "May the way be open" (a blessing needed in a city of about fifteen million where gridlock is part of daily life). Sometimes, I heard the greeting that is also a profound blessing, Selamun aleykum, "Peace be with you."

Peace be with you — those words have such a powerful resonance. After Jesus' resurrection, they were the first words Jesus spoke to his disciples, who were cowering together in a locked room, immobilized by fear. He greeted them with a blessing of peace and then he commissioned them with the same blessing, saying, "Peace be with you! As the Father has sent me, I am sending you" (John 20:21, NIV, emphasis added). This peace is much more than a wish for the absence of conflict; this peace annihilates fear, heals brokenness, and restores relationship. This is the peace of shalom, a well-being that embraces body, mind, and soul, one that knits individuals together into flourishing community.

Or at least, that's what it should be. But the reality is that the words we say too often tend to lose their potency. When a blessing is reduced to a phrase we say out of habit, then it's drained of its significance. A blessing should be a sincere prayer that rises from our souls. When giving a blessing evolves into saying what we're expected to in a given situation, then it might be better not to say it at all. Perhaps this is the reason why some churches have abandoned the Christian practice of the sharing of peace during worship. I suspect they did so out of recognition that the people in the pews, arena seats, or folding chairs turning to greet their neighbors were mouthing words that no longer conveyed the good they were meant to embody. When the blessing of peace...