Keep the Faith: A blessing for the bridgers — a homily

In my Unitarian Universalist tradition there is an enchanting thing that happens at the end of the program year, in June, when our graduating high school seniors are sent out into the world. It is a bit like a baccalaureate and coming of age ceremony all wrapped up into one. We call this service our Bridging Ceremony.

The Bridging Ceremony is a powerful moment, a “threshold” if you will, that allows us to go back into the recesses of our own memories. Back to the times and places when we were sent out into the day.

How we are sent out into the day and into the world is of utmost importance as peoples of faith.

For me, as a child, my going out was almost always predicated by a series of questions, asked in quick succession: “did you eat; did you pray? It was so important that I leave with a full belly and a prayer of protection, given to me by my Haitian grandmother, Lauraine.

The answer of course was always “yes, grandma.”

She would then say “May God Bless You” everytime I left the safety of the house and trespassed onto the uncertainty of a hostile urban world in 1990s New York City.

Lauraine sent me out in the hopes that I would return, and I knew that there was always a place to return to, where I would be welcomed, safe and refreshed.

Her sending me was something done with fear and trepidation, but also hope and expectation.

I am sure our parents today, everywhere feel just as much fear and trepidation, and the same sense of expectation and hope.

On our recent Bridging Ceremony Sunday I invited my congregation to consider how we send out our children, now emerging adults into the world.

I hope that our youths go out with full bellies and hearts. I want them to go with our protections too, wrapped tightly in our profound love and caring for them.

The late 20th century Irish poet and theologian, John O’Donohue wrote that to bless someone is to invoke a change in the atmosphere, allowing the abundance of life to flow freely, like running water, like refreshing rain, straight from the source of all good things.

A blessing invites the kindness and gentleness of the universe to surround and enfold us and those we care about the most.

To pray a blessing is to bring on healing and transfiguration in the person praying and the people prayed for.

Our bridging ceremony works in the same way, transforming everyone and the world for the better.

A blessing is an important expression of intention that changes the way we breath as we speak it, consequently changing the atmosphere we share. Perhaps in its own way, the blessing casts a circle of protection around us, so that we might experience the holy in our everyday experiences.

Many years have passed and now I know why this was so important for my grandma to say “May God Bless You!” everyday.

We send our young adults out into the world, to attend college, or trade schools, or into gainful employment, but we don’t send them off, over a cliff. No, we have expectations. We have hopes that they will return in faith.

Our blessing is also an invitation to return to us when the time is right.

Our blessing is an incantation expressing our desire for return and a summons to the youth to take their rightful place in our community, which we will always hold open for them.

To our graduating seniors, we say that we hope you will share what you learn and experience on your adventure with us in time; blessing us as we have hopefully blessed you, with new knowledge, insights, and new ways of being.

We hope we have indeed filled you with hopes and dreams of a better world, filled you with a capacity for caring, and a sense of fairness, and most of all, a sense of the holy however you define it, that will tether and ground you during difficult times.

To all of our emerging adults, who are Bridging the gap between youth and adulthood, we commend you, and commission you and say “go out and be a blessing to the world.”

“May God Bless You!”

The Rev. Daniel Gregoire is minister of the Unitarian Universalist Society of Grafton and Upton.

This article originally appeared on Telegram & Gazette: Keep the Faith: A blessing for the bridgers — a homily