Rector's Note: May My Eyes Bless All I See-9.11.25

For my end of summer reading, I’m listening to a recording of the book Anam Cara: A Book of Celtic Wisdom by the late spiritual writer John O’Donohue.  The book’s title is Gaelic for “soul friend”, and in it O’Donohue explores friendship with people, with one’s body, with the soul and ultimately with ourselves. It is poetic and deeply true, and to tell you much more about it I will have to re-read it completely.

I have to admit that my attempts to listen to this fine work while doing exercises in the morning and driving home in the evening are doing a bit of  violence to some of his finer points on stillness, solitude and silence. I look forward to the bound version that’s coming in the mail, which I can spend time with, savor and underline. There is so much I miss when listening to a book.

Still one idea caught my ear this week and has stayed with me. Tucked in a chapter on the Celtic reverence for the day was a quote from a poem collected and translated by Scottish folklorist Alexander Carmichael.

… Bless Thou to me mine eye,May mine eye bless all it sees;I will bless my neighbour,May my neighbour bless me…

I found myself praying this little blessing on my drive to work yesterday and today, attempting to acknowledge all the movements that caught my eye – the cars, the pedestrians, the people. Other mornings they might be obstacles or potential hazards, or to be honest, invisible. But as I set my intention and invited my eye to bless all it saw, my commute to work changed.

On a 20-minute drive so many things can catch my eye. To meet them with blessing sent me outward into the world that I was driving through. It helped me leave the confines of the rolling echo chamber that isolates me on my daily commute.  It required me to ready my intention, to set up a blessing to release.

What sized blessing fits into the tiny slice of time left by a vehicle going 25 miles per hour? God be with you? God bless you? And it occurred to me that blessings are highly expandible; I could pack much more into it if I didn’t try to say it out loud as passed by.  May you be free of anxiety today. May something delight you. May your spirit be lifted. May this bit of love make a difference. All those intentions could fit within.

May my eye bless all it sees. The legless man in his wheelchair. The woman with the unstable gait crossing Germantown Avenue. The man with the saxophone talking to the crossing guard on the corner of Mt. Pleasant and Thouron. The people walking dogs or children or shopping carts. All the souls in passing vehicles. Too many to name or remember. Not too many to notice with an eye that blesses.

The practice felt a bit to me like bird watching. When I’m on a walk in the neighborhood or I’m in the woods, my eyes automatically scan the trees for movement, my ears tune to unusual calls. I look until I can identify the hidden bird. And the encounter always feels to me a bit like a blessing, or a discovery.

O’Donohue says that the eye loves movement. And so perhaps it is designed to draw me to prayerful attention.

What if I looked to bless the bits of movement and distraction through my day with the same spirit of discovery that I take birdwatching, the anticipation of hidden wonder? What if I prepare ahead, the way I might grab a pair of binoculars or birding guide, and loaded that blessing into my consciousness ahead of time. Then what if I look and look for faces and spaces that call it forward?  

What then?

This experiment in blessing has made me consider how much stock I put in the power of blessing. It’s a power that belongs to all of us, not just to priests and holy people, says O’Donohue. It travels as any prayer travels, on our intention to love all within and all without. I believe it is a powerful and transformative act of faith and love.

And so I found myself feeling a little bit in love with everyone and everything I saw this morning.

It’s a new idea for me, this form of blessing. I invite you to give it a try as well and let me know what you think.

May your eyes bless all they see.