Baby Blessings (blessing with earth, air, fire, and water)
Reading
Unitarian Universalism draws from many sources. We become familiar with scriptures and stories from world religions and discover their meaning and wisdom.
This reading is from the 14th century Muslim Sufi Poet Hafiz.
Every child has known God,
Not the God of names,
Not the God of don’ts,
Not the God who ever does Anything weird,
But the God who knows only 4 words.
And keeps repeating them, saying:
“Come Dance with Me , come dance.”
And from the Hebrew scriptures from the book of Isaiah ~
“Fear not, I have called you by name, you are mine.
When you pass through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you;
when you walk through fire, you shall not be consumed.
You are precious in my eyes, and honored, and I love you.”
Or As the Message Bible puts it,
“When you’re in over your head, I’ll be there with you.
When you’re in rough waters, you will not go down.
When you’re between a rock and a hard place,
It won’t be a dead end…
How much I love you!…
So don’t be afraid: I’m with you.”
“Hello babies. Welcome to Earth.
It’s hot in the summer and cold in the winter.
It’s round and wet and crowded.
On the outside, you’ve got a hundred years here.
There’s only one rule that I know of.. you’ve got to be kind.”
[Kurt Vonnegut from the morning call to worship]
Life is fragile. Airplanes crash. Firefighters lose their lives.
Someone who is a pillar of strength in your life
collapses from a heart attack or stress or a stroke.
Our days pass by quickly.
Our lives sometimes seem over in a flash.
Given all this fragility,
there’s only one rule you need to know: be kind.
When I was a high school English teacher,
I became friends with my colleague Kerstin.
Inside her desk drawer,
Kerstin had handwritten an index card quoting Aldous Huxley,
“It is a bit embarrassing
to have been concerned with the human problem all one’s life
and find at the end that one has no more to offer
by way of advice than ‘try to be a little kinder.’”
On her bulletin board were the words often attributed to Plato,
“Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle.”
Under the visor in Kerstin’s car was “Be Kind.”
At her home, open her refrigerator door, and you’d see,
“It’s not only dignified and honorable, it is glorious to be kind.”
This reminds me of a story I heard about a man who had a parrot
that had a terrible attitude and an even worse vocabulary.
He tried to change the bird’s behavior
by speaking softly and saying only loving and encouraging things,
but still the bird continued to squawk
awful things at everyone in the home.
At one point the owner finally lost his temper and,
just to get some peace and quiet,
threw the parrot into the freezer.
The parrot yelled insults and foul language for a while
and then was suddenly silent.
“Oh no,” the man thought, because he didn’t want to hurt the bird.
Pulling open the door, he was relieved
to see that the parrot was just fine.
In fact, the parrot said very sweetly,
“I want to sincerely apologize for my bad language,
my mean attitude and anything I have done to annoy you.”
The owner was amazed at the transformation.
But then the parrot added,
“And now, if I may be so bold, can I ask what the turkey did?”
(told by Lillian Daniel in When “Spiritual But Not Religious is Not Enough)
Try to be a little kinder.
We are all made of the same elements: earth, air, fire, and water.
We all have our struggles. We all want to be loved.
When babies arrive, I often send families this reading
from P.L. Travers’ Mary Poppins Comes Back.
In the story a new baby has been born in the Banks family.
Magically, a Starling bird asks, “Where did she come from?”
And the new born baby speaks.
“I am earth and air and fire and water,” she said softly.
“I come from the Dark where all things have their beginning.
I come from the sea and its tide, from the sky and its stars,
I come from the sun and its brightness.
And I come from the forests of earth…
I heard the stars singing as I came…
I passed the beasts of the jungle
and came through the dark, deep waters.
It was a long journey.”
“A long journey, indeed!”
said the Starling softly, “and, ah, so soon forgotten.”
Remember who you are and where you came from.
You are earth and air and fire and water.
When people die, we often offer their loved ones these words,
“I am the wind, breathing in you and for you,
blowing gently over you, caressing you.
I am the earth, holding you.
Give me the weight of your body and relax into my arms.
I am the sun, warming you, melting away the cares of this world.
I am a deep river, flowing through you.
I give you peace.
I am the sky, open space never-ending, open space, vast
and edgeless space, where you may float forever.
I am peace, I am spirit, I am love,
I am life growing into new life.”
We are earth and air and fire and water and to them we return.
Members’ ashes are buried on these church grounds.
Family and friends are invited to place a handful of dirt into the hole.
On this hill high above the bay,
where warm sun shines, winds blow and rains fall,
we let go our loved ones to the earth.
In community we lose dear ones…brilliant ones…
they drop like leaves, scarlet and golden from the trees.
And then there are these new green buds…
like Naomi and Teagan. Life is precious.
A perk of this job is blessing babies.
During baby blessings, you all seem to sit up a little taller
and lean in a little closer. Your eyes shine. You smile.
We all seem a little sweeter, reminded of the preciousness of life.
Here we are together.
There may be a woman with postpartum depression
who could barely get herself here today.
There may be some parents whose own children
aren’t being such sweet little babies anymore.
There are some parents and kids
who might have had a pretty good fight on the way here today.
Maybe there are some people using walkers
who are terrified of kids running around,
afraid they might take another fall.
Maybe some folks can’t hear too well anymore,
and kids’ voices in services make it harder.
Somebody else might be thinking of the babies
not so fortunate across town or around the globe.
Maybe somebody is thinking about
the parents separated from their babies
because immigration laws can break up families.
Maybe somebody’s longing for a partner, for a loving family
or wonders if their own parents ever loved them like this.
Maybe sitting next to them is someone
who will never have children
and who watches this baby blessing with envy.
Maybe there are parents whose hearts are breaking
wishing their babies had the good health of these babies.
Or maybe those parents see this community oooh and awww
over these babies and wonder how we embrace babies
who aren’t so healthy.
A mother Emily Perl Kingsley wrote, “I am often asked to describe
the experience of raising a child with a disability –
to try to help people who have not shared that unique experience
to understand it, to imagine how it would feel. It’s like this……
When you’re going to have a baby,
it’s like planning a fabulous vacation trip – to Italy.
You buy a bunch of guide books and make your wonderful plans.
The Coliseum. The Michelangelo David. The gondolas in Venice.
You may learn some handy phrases in Italian. It’s all very exciting.
After months of eager anticipation, the day finally arrives.
You pack your bags and off you go.
Several hours later, the plane lands.
The [flight attendant announces], “Welcome to Holland.”
“Holland?!?” you say. “What do you mean Holland??
I signed up for Italy! I’m supposed to be in Italy.
All my life I’ve dreamed of going to Italy.”
But there’s been a change in the flight plan.
They’ve landed in Holland and there you must stay….
So you must go out and buy new guide books.
And you must learn a whole new language.
And you will meet a whole new group of people
you would never have met.
It’s just a different place.
It’s slower-paced than Italy, less flashy than Italy.
But after you’ve been there for a while and you catch your breath,
you look around…. and you begin to notice that Holland
has windmills….and Holland has tulips.
Holland even has Rembrandts.
But everyone you know is busy coming and going from Italy…
They’re all bragging about what a wonderful time they had there.
And for the rest of your life, you will say,
“Yes, that’s where I was supposed to go.
That’s what I had planned.”
And the pain of that will never.. go away…
because the loss of that dream is a very…significant loss.
But… if you spend your life mourning the fact
that you didn’t get to Italy,
you may never be free to enjoy the very special,
the very lovely things … about Holland.”
We’re a bunch of very human people trying
to create community together.
Be kind for everyone has their struggles.
All are wanting to be loved.
We have been blessed and sustained all the days of our life
by earth, air, fire, and water.
And there are earthquakes, tornadoes, wildfires, floods.
Sometimes we’re awake in the night with fears.
We notice earth tremors or strong winds and we worry.
This could be an earthquake. This could be a tornado.
There are fires we need to put out.
We’re in rough waters.
We’re being flooded with other people’s expectations for us.
We feel in over our heads at work, in relationships,
We feel trapped between a rock and a hard place.
What helps? What keeps us going?
A drink might relax us. A cookie might comfort.
But often they just perpetuate the cycle of restless nights
and stumbling in the morning to the kitchen for a cup of coffee.
Barbara and I were at General Assembly,
the annual gathering of Unitarian Universalists.
A colleague invited us to take a break with her.
We found a quiet spot and sat down together.
Nancy suggested we take 5 minutes and write down
the sparkling moments we’d had during our busy days.
After 5 minutes, we took 10 minutes to write on one
of the moments with as much sensory detail as we could.
Then we read to each other what we wrote.
Each reflection on a sparkling moment brought tears to our eyes.
This is a practice that can help me through rough waters.
Maybe you’d like to try it too.
Taking time to list sparkling moments and write on one
probably doesn’t take more time than worrying and losing sleep.
Knowing you are going to list sparkling moments,
you probably will be on the lookout for some.
You might even create sparkling moments.
There will still be earth tremors and strong winds,
but the practice may help quiet them.
Sometimes you want your child or your partner or your boss or
your minister to be the person you’ve dreamed of.
It’s like you want them to be Italian and they’re Dutch.
Or you wish you were Italian so you think maybe
if the other people in your life were Italian, you’d be happier.
A blessing of earth is humbleness.
Humility comes from the root humus which means earth.
Humility means knowing both our limits and our gifts.
You can’t be everything everyone wants you to be.
You can’t even be everything you want yourself to be.
And, you have amazing gifts.
And the people around you…well, if they aren’t David
or gondolas, maybe they have sides to them
that are like Rembrandts or tulips.
Friday at our spiritual practices group,
Barbara and I sat on the floor with seven others.
We witnessed one young woman dance
on behalf of her family’s cat who had died.
The cat, she said, had made her mother and her a family.
Nicole has downs syndrome.
She danced her grief
and celebrated the purr and delight of the furry creature’s life.
As the music soared, the young dancer rose.
And then she fell to the floor.
I thought this part of the dance
showed the fallen cat, the sinking heart of grief.
Then Nicole rose again and kept dancing.
After the dance, her mother asked her if she’d hurt herself.
The fall wasn’t intended.
Nicole, like every child, Italian or Dutch or whatever,
knows the God who knows only four words –
“Come, Dance With Me.”
Like Nicole you have a dance to dance of the downs and ups,
the losses and hope of life…a human dance, flawed and glorious.
That is what we all are – flawed and glorious.
Just as you are…just as we are…
we are worthy and we are loved.
We are valuable to friends, family, community and the earth.
Earthlings, we are precious. Let’s be kind to one another.
Be gentle.
It’s a blessing you were born.
