a Valentine blessing

 a Valentine blessing for all our loves by Kate Bowler 

o God, we need love.

Love in all its forms.

Love that can carry us through this.  

Valentine's Day 2006 

o God of love,

could You pray a loving blessing

in us and through us, right now,

and all the days of our lives?

God have mercy.

Christ have mercy.

Spirit have mercy.

Valentine's Day 2007 

Bless our kids and grandkids.

Children here and those gone.

Bless the people who quicken our hearts,

now and years past.

Bless our parents and grandparents,

strengthen our roots and our branches.

Bless our pets and your creation,

and the comfort it brings.

Bless our friends and our chosen families,

all the bonds that hold us.

Thank you for this love,

this absurd and wonderful love.  

God have mercy.

Christ have mercy.

Spirit have mercy.

Valentine's Day 2008 

O satisfy us with Your loving kindness in the morning

[now, before we grow older],

That we may rejoice and be glad all our days.

Psalm 90:14 

Valentine's Day 2009 

o God of Love, blessed are we,

bearing in our hearts a deep desire to love,

understanding full well how we fall short.

love is the fuel.

love is food we ourselves need.

here at the still point

of awareness of our tiresome insufficiency,

blessed are we, who say God,

come and meet us

in this nexus of need and desire,

that we might not only pray a blessing,

but live it.

Valentine's Day 2010 

God pour down Your blessing

on all our loves, all whom we cherish,

some still here and some now gone.

bless the memories we hold

of those who have died,

and release in us the fullness of being able

to love them as they were in this life,

and as they are now as You see them

in the mystery that is beyond our sight.

blessed are we who open our hands

to receive grace for the love

we both need and desire,

love that flows back and forth freely

with forgiveness and peace beyond understanding.

Valentine's Day 2011

and God, bless the ones who share

this present time and space with us here,

whose lives are yet an unwritten book,

just like ours.

come and write Your love poem into all

that we speak – in our words and our actions –

that we might love so genuinely, so truly,

that Your heart would rejoice to see it

because You are in it.

for it is Your face that we see

in the eyes of another.

God have mercy.

Christ have mercy.

Spirit have mercy.

Valentine's Day 2012 

 

go your way.

notice where you can bless.

and follow the love.

 

Whoever brings blessing

will be enriched,

and one who waters

will himself be watered

Proverbs 11:25

Valentine's Day 2013