A wideness to fill the empty spaces

And the Table Will Be Wide
A Blessing for World Communion Sunday

 

Jan Richardson

 

And the table
will be wide.
And the welcome
will be wide.
And the arms
will open wide
to gather us in.
And our hearts
will open wide
to receive.

 

And we will come
as children who trust
there is enough.
And we will come
unhindered and free.
And our aching
will be met
with bread.
And our sorrow
will be met
with wine.

 

And we will open our hands
to the feast
without shame.
And we will turn
toward each other
without fear.
And we will give up
our appetite
for despair.
And we will taste
and know
of delight.

 

And we will become bread
for a hungering world.
And we will become drink
for those who thirst.
And the blessed
will become the blessing.
And everywhere
will be the feast.

 

 

This blessing, written by the wonderfully creative Jan Richardson, can be found in its original home at her website here.  Her art is beautiful, but I find myself particularly blessed by her words today. 

 

I have been lonely, these last few days.  Events in my life have conspired with my tendency toward melancholy to make me feel isolated.  It's a temporary feeling, this I know now from the few years of experience I have.  But I am reminded nonetheless of the loneliness I felt in Budapest, and at St. Olaf.  My loneliness at its heart is at once a feeling of being isolated and unseen by the world, and also a feeling of not knowing, and perhaps not fully trusting, myself. 

 

I am at a strange place in my life.  I am at a struggling place.  I wrestle, and in that effort I know I am alive and that I am doing the work I must do right now.  But I haven't finished the match yet; haven't won; haven't lost.  Each day I must reach inside and find the energy and the joy to continue struggling.  And each day I am learning to reach outside to find the encouragement and support I need.  God is good, though I think of him with less surety than ever before.  The gifts of abundance, and of freedom, and of trust - a child's trust; the trust of one who has not learned to hide her wounds - these are the gifts for which I cling to Christ.  That my ache may be met with bread, and that I may become bread to a hungering world.  I know these things are true; this is the way of God, and it is good. 

 

But some days, I feel lonely.  So I watch back episodes of Parks and Recreation, laugh a little, take a nice warm bath.  I call my friends, and I let others' words bless me through the internet.  Things always feel better in the morning.