In the week of St. Patrick’s Day, I always revisit my favorite Irish blessing:
“May the Road Riser to Meet You.” It was often sung as a Response in Song after the Benediction in a former congregation.
May the road rise to meet you,
May the wind be always at your back.
May the sunshine warm upon your face,
The rains fall soft upon your fields,
And until we meet again,
May God hold you in the palm of his hand.
It's about God’s blessing for our journey – may our walk be an easy one – with no huge mountains to climb or obstacles to overcome. It alludes to three images from nature – the wind, sun and rain – as pictures of God’s care and provision. The wind is the Spirit of God; the sun’s warmth reminds us of the tender mercies of God; the soft falling rain speaks of God’s provision and sustenance. Finally, we are reminded that we are held safe in God’s loving hands as we travel on our journey through life.
Today I came across the rest of the poem, after discovering the part that has meant so much to me through the years is only the first six lines! Here is the rest of the poem:
May God be with you and bless you:
May you see your children’s children.
May you be poor in misfortune,
Rich in blessings.
May you know nothing but happiness
From this day forward.
May the road rise up to meet you
May the wind be always at your back
May the warm rays of sun fall upon your home
And may the hand of a friend always be near.
May green be the grass you walk on,
May blue be the skies above you,
May pure be the joys that surround you,
May true be the hearts that love you.
How special to have the fullness of the blessing to share this St. Patrick’s Day!
Elizabeth
Saturday’s Presbytery meeting was the first that felt a little like “old times”, after several years of ZOOM meetings for the most part. While fewer folks gathered in person, the worship was special, the fellowship heart-warming and the meeting accomplished its purpose. The “invitation” to the meeting was unique: “Come to Worship, and Stay for the Meeting.” The Message in Word and Song was “Sing Anyway!”
During worship, we sang new words to familiar hymn tunes and we shared the Lord’s Supper. Handbells and a special choir gathered for service blessed us all. After a fellowship luncheon, also music-filled, we gathered again to tend to business. At lunch we found a hymn at each place, and the hymn at my place was “Here I Am, Lord,” a wonderful hymn we learned the year I graduated from seminary, so it was very special to me.
In “Sing Anyway!” we were reminded that in every season of life there is a song to sing. I began reflecting on my journey of life and faith and remember “All the Way My Savior Leads Me” as one of my “journey” songs:
All the way my Savior leads me; what have I to ask beside?
Can I doubt His tender mercy, who thro’ life has been my Guide?
Heavenly peace, divinest comfort, here by faith in Him to dwell!
For I know, whate’er befall me, Jesus doeth all things well;
For I know, whate’er befall me, Jesus doeth all things well.
“O Jesus I Have Promised” was sung from the heart my first Sunday as a seminary student:
O Jesus, I have promised, to serve Thee to the end.
Be thou forever near me, my Master and my Friend.
I shall not fear the battle, if thou art by my side,
Nor wander from the pathway, if Thou wilt be my guide.
“Great is Thy Faithfulness” has encouraged me all along my journey of life and faith – a song to be sung in every season of life:
Great is Thy faithfulness! Great is Thy faithfulness!
Morning by morning, new mercies I see.
All I have needed Thy hand hath provided,
Great is Thy faithfulness, Lord unto me.
“My Life Flows On” was sung after the message, and has special meaning for me. In a former congregation, the choir director suffered a ruptured aneurism and I visited with him as he lay unresponsive in an intensive care unit and sang this to him:
My life goes on in endless song
Above earth´s lamentations,
I hear the real, though far-off hymn
That hails a new creation.
No storm can shake my inmost calm,
While to that rock I´m clinging.
Since love is lord of heaven and earth
How can I keep from singing?
Hymn of Promise” has encouraged me again and again when facing losses along the way:
In the bulb there is a flower, in the seed an apple tree.
In cocoons a hidden promise, butterflies will soon be free.
In the cold and snow of winter, there’s a spring that waits to be,
unrevealed until its season, something God, alone can see.
All along our journeys of life and faith, whatever a season brings, we can find a song to sing! We can “sing anyway!”
Elizabeth
In going through some files in my little office in the manse, I came across something I wrote 40 years ago, during one of the many times of transition in my life. It spoke to my heart as though written yesterday.
God, the Tree and Me
Psalm 1:3; Isaiah 61:3
Looking out my kitchen window, I see many oak trees. The tall, rugged trees hold on to bunches of brown, crumpled leaves all winter. While all the leaves on other trees, and most of the oak’s leaves give way to frost, wind, rain, and snow, a few stubborn ones cling to the otherwise barren branches.
The tree has no power on its own to “let go” of these remaining leaves, but will wait until the spring sap rises, at which time those leaves will fall off by themselves.
I am like that tree. As I move from season to season in my life, old, ugly dried-up “leaves” continue to cling to me. Like Paul, the things I want to do I seem unable to do and the things I don’t want to do, I do. (Romans 7:19) How hard I work to pluck off those leaves, and how discouraged I become when they stubbornly remain there.
As it is with the oak tree and the spring sap, so it is with my life. I simply need to dwell in the presence of Jesus, abide in His Word, and be open to the moving of the Holy Spirit in my life – confident that as the Spirit begins to flow through me, all those ugly old habits, that cling so tightly will begin to drop off with no effort on my part, and I will be able to walk in newness of life.
Looking out the kitchen window gave me the gifts I wrote about years ago. After this year’s Ash Wednesday service, looking up at the pink sky with a sliver of moon and Jupiter and Venus standing guard was a moment when the heavens were telling the glory of God. The season of Lent is a time to look inward to our inner selves and make the changes we need to make in our lives to live more faithfully. It’s also a time to look upward to God, so that we might more faithfully look outward to a world longing for the good news of the gospel.
Elizabeth