This, from Barbara Brown Taylor's An Altar in the World: A Geography of Faith. The last chapter is entitled, "The Practice of Pronouncing Blessings," which BBT encourages everyone to do, not just clergy-types:
"The next time you are at the airport, try blessing the people sitting at the departure gate with you. Every one of them is dealing with something significant. See that mother trying to contain her explosive two-year old? See that pock-faced boy with the huge belly? Even if you cannot know for sure what is going on with them, you can still give a care. They are on their way somewhere, the same way you are. They are between places, too, with no more certainty than you about what will happen at the other end. Pronounce a silent blessing and pay attention to what happens in the air between you and that other person, all those other people."
If there is a theme in this book, perhaps this is it. To see people, to see the world. Earlier in the book she talks about the sixteen-year old kid at the grocery store who crushes her carefully chosen shitake mushrooms with canned goods. But when she engages the kid she realizes he really isn't doing that to be rude to her; he is just clueless about what those strange things even are!
It's not all about us. This book is hard to categorize: is it about prayer, theology, religion, or life? I think the answer is yes. And it's a blessing to read.
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