Благослови Џона О'Донохуа

Не памтим да сам у скорије време читала књигу чије речи собом носе толико нежности и доброте. Француски писац, Кристијан Бобен примећује како се о доброти није много писало и да све док се може о њој писати, вреди писати. Овде доброта није предмет писања, али све одише добротом. Реч је наиме о проналажењу изгубљеног умећа благосиљања и књизи To Bless the Space Between Us Џона О'Донохуа (1956-2008), песника, писца, философа и свештеника ирског порекла.

Најпре сам изглед књиге одише лепотом. Твд повез, а унутра спој светлоплавих слова и класје жутих наслова са по којим келтским орнаментом попут сунца. Књига благослова отпочиње јутарњим и завршава вечерњим благосиљањем, а између се преплићу живота вредни догађаји (рођење, очинство, мајчинство, нови почетак, нови дом, долазак, одлазак, рођендан, старост, смрт и умирање, итд). Кажем "живота вредни", јер у сваком случају догађаји јесу, али често, услед тога што им не указујемо довољно ни пажње ни времена не успевају да добију на значају и повежу се са нашим властитим животом, а још мање са животима оних чији је наш живот део. Остајући тако неповезани ни са собом, ни са другима, заглушујемо и свој и једни другима живот. А сам живот јесте дар, благослов над благословима, или као што сам аутор примећује: "the primal sacrament, the visible sign of invisible grace. The structure of our experience are the windows into the divine. When we are true to the call of experience, we are true to God".

Позивајући се на Рилкеа који каже: "Hier zu sein ist so viel - to be here is immense, аутор се осврће на тајну постојања и бележи:

Nowhere does the silence of the infinite lean so intensely as around the form of a newly born infant. Once we arrive, we enter into the inheritance of everything that has preceded us; we become heirs to the world. To be born is to be chosen. To be created and come to birth is to be blessed. Some primal kindness chose us and brought us through the forest of dreaming until will could emerge into the clearance of individuality, with a path of life opening before us through the world.

У тим раскриљеним димензијама небо-земног постојања сагледавању се предаје и само поимање благодати. 

A blessing evokes a privileged intimacy - примећује аутор. It touches that tender membrane where the human heart cries out to its divine ground. (...) A blessing is not the sentiment or a question; it is a gracious invocation where the human pleads with the devine heart. There is nothing more intimate in a life than the secret underterritory where it anchors. Regardless of our differences in religion, language, or concept, there is no heart that is without this inner divine reference. (...)
When a blessing is invoked, it changes the atmosphere. Some of the plenitude flows into our hearts from the invisible neighborhood of loving kindness.

А та љубећа доброта се изражава као она која има

gracious eyes; it is not small-minded or competitive; it wants nothing back for itself. Kindness strikes a resonance with the depths of your own heart; it also suggests that your vulnerability, though somehow exposed, is not taken advantage of; rather, it has become an occasion for dignity and empathy. Kindness casts a different light, an evening light that has the depth of color and patience to illuminate what is complex and rich in difference.

Посебну пажњу ми је привукло питање о томе ко може да даје благослов. Веома је занимљив начин на који је он сагледао и одговорио на то питање те га дајем у целости:

When I was a young priest I had occasion to visit a contemplative community of sisters. An old sister opened the door. Knowing that I was a new priest, she asked for my first blessing. I stood over this contemplative and drew on every resource I knew to invoke the most intimate blessing. As I was completing the blessing, it struck me how ironical this situation was: here was a contemplative who had spent over sixty years of her life navigating the searing silence and darkness of God, yet she was asking a twenty-five-year-old for his blessing. When she stood up I decided to kneel down and ask her for her blessing. She seemed utterly taken aback; she mumbled something and practically ran out of the room. She must never have had such a request for her blessing before. This was a woman who practiced a totally contemplative life, and yet the system made her feel that she could not bless, and, conversely, it made me think I could. This experience led me to question who had the authority and power to bless.
Who has the power to bless? This question is not to be answered simply by the description of one's institutional status or membership. But perhaps there are deeper questions hidden here: What do you bless with? Or where do you bless from? When you bless another, you first gather yourself; you reach below your surface mind and personality, down to the deeper source within you - namely the soul. Blessing is from soul to soul. And the key to who you are is your soul. 

За крај, на дан када се прославља Свети Сава, волела бих да издвојим следећа два благослова:

FOR CITIZENSHIP

In these times when anger

Is turned into anxiety

And someone has stolen

The horizons and mountains,

Our small emperors on parade

Never expect our indifference

To disturb their nakedness.

They keep their hands down

And their eyes gleam with reflection

From aluminium economic ground,

The media wraps everything

In a cellophane of sound,

And the ghost surface of the virtual

Overlays the breathing earth.

The industry of distraction

Makes us forget

That we live in a universe.

We have become converts

To the religion of stress

And its deity of progress;

That we may have courage

To turn aside from it all

And come to kneel down before the poor,

To discover what we must do,

How to turn anxiety

Back into anger,

How to find our way home.

FOR A LEADER

May you have the grace and wisdom

To act kindly, learning

To distinguish between what is 

Personal and what is not.

May you be hospitable of criticism.

May you never put yourself at the center of things.

May you act not from arrogance but out of service. 

May you work on yourself,

Building up and refining the ways of your mind.

May those who work for you know

You see and respect them.

May you learn to cultivate the art of presence

In order to engage with those who meet you.

When someone fails or disappoints you,

May the graciousness with which you engage

Be their stairway to renewal and refinement.

May you treasure the gifts of the mind

Through reading and creative thinking

So that you continue as a servant of the frontier

Where the new will draw its enrichment from the 

old,

And you never become a functionary.

May you know the wisdom of deep listening,

The healing of wholesome words,

The encouragement of the appreciative gaze,

The decorum of held dignity,

The springtime edge of the bleak question.

May you have a mind that loves frontiers

So that you can evoke the bright fields

That lie beyond the view of the regular eye.

May you have good friends

To mirror your blind spots.

May leadership be for you

A true adventure of growth.

Ову извандредну књигу вреди читати што чешће и што спорије.