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Benediction

Today was another "last" with my friends and colleagues at BCM HQ (including some of the Puddleducks team included in this picture) hosting a farewell coffee morning. Unlike most of the other events I prepared my reply to the nice things said about me, including this concluding Benediction, taken, in part, fron a longer series of beatitudes in my recently published book of poems "Hedge Songs."

Blessed are you who are burned-out and  overworked,
picking up the pieces of broken lives in a broken world,
because you will know the breath of God filling your lungs and spirits.

Happy are you who say “Stop! This is not right!”
in the face of impossible odds,
because God’s got your back.

Blessed are you who are changemakers
rather than just reacting to change,
because change is the crack in the universe
through which God pours in opportunity.

Happy are you who weep now at partings,
but refocus on the future,
because the same God who blessed you in the past is waiting for you up ahead.

Blessed are you in the midst of the brokenness,
within and around you,
because our crucified God knows your pain.

Happy are you, not hereafter, 
but here and now and forevermore
AMEN

Selah

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