An October Blessing

May you wake to a cracked window and rain that started in the night.

Before you get elbow-deep into your work, may you get ankle-deep in leaves. Poet or builder, pastor or mother—may you welcome the cooler air by being in it.

May you take a walk and need a jacket, and hear the geese squawking their way southward. Unlike them, may you not flee before the winter that’s coming, but like the beaver, burrow deep and batten your hatches.

May you spend more time looking up than down. May you see the full Hunter’s Moon and forget about your own little, selfish desires. May the Lord of the Harvest grow big to you, while you shrink to the size of an acorn in his palm. May you be humbled, and loved.

May you hunt a deer, or feast on a deer someone has hunted for you, and remember the death that gave you life.

May you climb a tree before the winds take all the leaves; and if you don’t bend that way anymore, may you teach someone littler the proper way to climb. May you hold them up.

And when you get too busy, may those littler people draw you out under the stars to remind you you’re little, too.

May you sketch a picture or write a note or bake a muffin for the good of someone else.

May you read a book under a tree (and may a falling acorn not bring you harm).

When the dark comes sooner and sooner each evening, may you go into it and look back to see the light coming from the kitchen window, and may you remember that every cold wind is blowing you Home.

In the meantime, may the Lord bless you and keep you. May he make his face to shine upon you like October sunlight through windtossed trees. May his grace keep you.

“Now may the God of peace who brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus, the great shepherd of the sheep, by the blood of the eternal covenant, equip you with everything good that you may do his will, working in us that which is pleasing in his sight, through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory forever and ever. Amen.” ~ Hebrews 13:20-21

Listen to songs of benediction here.