Aspergillum, Nuns, and Giving Your Blessings

On blessings

“But I didn’t even sneeze,” said bird.

“Sometimes,” replied bear with a smile, “we don’t a reason to bless one another.”

…

📷: Endless and the White Stork

…

“An asper what?!” I asked, still wiping water out of my eyes.

“An aspergillum,” replied Sister Margaret Mary.

It was a Wednesday. I was 12. And we were leaving church and walking back to school.

Moments before, the priest had gotten up without any warning, stuck what looked like a fancy ice cream scooper with holes in it (an aspergillum) into a bucket of water and started going up and down the aisles, pelting row after row with the cold stuff.

“It’s a way to bless the congregation,” explained Sr. Margaret Mary.

“By drowning us?” I thought to myself. “Some blessing.”

…

“Blessings to you as you create your beautiful mobiles,” she wrote.

I handmake most every mobile to order. And that allows me to think about the person (or people) for whom I'm making each one.

Often I don't know anything more than a name and city. But just as often I'll get backstory on why the mobile is being ordered – childhood memories of seeing their first mobile, hand in hand with a father, a mom who’s always liked mobiles, a newborn, gifts to self after a fire or a move or a loss, and on and on.

I feel blessed to be able to meditate on each person as I create for each of them, with a known story or not.

That said, in all the years I've been selling mobiles (back to 2008), I've never had a customer wish *me* blessings as I create for them.

“Each day,” she said, “I ask my higher power who I will love and bless today, then I listen and respond. Your name came into my mind so that is how the blessing happened.”

I was genuinely touched, and did indeed feel loved and protected.

Higher power or not, who might you love and bless today, giving them a little extra comfort and tenderness as they bump against the world?