As I turn 50, I want to share a truly lovely poem sent to me as a birthday present by a good friend, Ellen Dionisio, who also celebrates her birthday on the 15th of March. The poem had earlier been sent to her by our common friend, Gina Magadia-Martinez.
The poet, John O'Donahue, is Irish. He died last year.
For Your Birthday
Blessed be the mind that dreamed that day
The blueprint of your life
Would begin to glow on earth,
Illuminating all the faces and voices
That would arrive to invite
Your soul to growth.
Praised be your father and mother,
Who loved you before you were,
And trusted to call you here
With no idea who you would be.
Blessed be those who have loved you
Into becoming who you were meant to be.
Blessed be those who have crossed your life
With dark gifts of hurt and loss
That have helped to school your mind
In the art of disappointment.
When desolation surrounded you,
Blessed be those who looked for you
And found you, their kind hands
Urgent to open a blue window
In the gray wall formed around you.
Blessed be the gifts you never notice,
Your health, eyes to behold the world,
Thoughts to countenance the unknown
Memory to harvest vanished days,
Your heart to feel the world's waves,
Your breath to breathe the nourishment
Of distance made intimate by earth.
On this echoing day of your birth,
May you open the gift of solitude
In order to receive your soul;
Enter the generosity of silence
To hear your hidden heart;
Know the serenity of stillness
To be enfolded anew
By the miracle of your being.
--John O'Donahue
I have been re-reading this poem over and over again since I got it yesterday afternoon. It captures so much of what I feel, and says it so so much more strikingly and beautifully than I ever could. It invites me to prayer and thanksgiving for so much.
So, following O'Donahue, I wish to give thanks. Thank you to my parents who "called me here before they knew who I would be." Thank you to the many who loved me and the much fewer who hurt me, all of whom helped me to grow. Thanks to those, kind and good, who found me in desolation and "opened a blue window in the gray wall" of life. Thank you for gifts, many and varied, that I never notice. Thank you, above all, to the One "who dreamed that day the blueprint of my life would begin to glow on earth."
And I pray that, more and more, I may "open the gift of solitude in order to receive my soul."
The poet, John O'Donahue, is Irish. He died last year.
For Your Birthday
Blessed be the mind that dreamed that day
The blueprint of your life
Would begin to glow on earth,
Illuminating all the faces and voices
That would arrive to invite
Your soul to growth.
Praised be your father and mother,
Who loved you before you were,
And trusted to call you here
With no idea who you would be.
Blessed be those who have loved you
Into becoming who you were meant to be.
Blessed be those who have crossed your life
With dark gifts of hurt and loss
That have helped to school your mind
In the art of disappointment.
When desolation surrounded you,
Blessed be those who looked for you
And found you, their kind hands
Urgent to open a blue window
In the gray wall formed around you.
Blessed be the gifts you never notice,
Your health, eyes to behold the world,
Thoughts to countenance the unknown
Memory to harvest vanished days,
Your heart to feel the world's waves,
Your breath to breathe the nourishment
Of distance made intimate by earth.
On this echoing day of your birth,
May you open the gift of solitude
In order to receive your soul;
Enter the generosity of silence
To hear your hidden heart;
Know the serenity of stillness
To be enfolded anew
By the miracle of your being.
--John O'Donahue
I have been re-reading this poem over and over again since I got it yesterday afternoon. It captures so much of what I feel, and says it so so much more strikingly and beautifully than I ever could. It invites me to prayer and thanksgiving for so much.
So, following O'Donahue, I wish to give thanks. Thank you to my parents who "called me here before they knew who I would be." Thank you to the many who loved me and the much fewer who hurt me, all of whom helped me to grow. Thanks to those, kind and good, who found me in desolation and "opened a blue window in the gray wall" of life. Thank you for gifts, many and varied, that I never notice. Thank you, above all, to the One "who dreamed that day the blueprint of my life would begin to glow on earth."
And I pray that, more and more, I may "open the gift of solitude in order to receive my soul."
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