Selected Transcript
GLORIA STEINEM
O gracious One, we know you by many names and experience you in many arenas of our lives.
No arena is more important this day to us than the arena of new beginnings. Here we are new, expectant, open for new adventure, perhaps anxious, perhaps scared, perhaps a bit lonely.
Calm us, empower us, encourage us, be with us.
And in the words of a Franciscan Blessing:
May God bless you with a restless discomfort about easy answers, half-truths and superficial relationships, so that you may seek truth boldly and live deep within your heart.
May God bless you with holy anger at injustice, oppression, and exploitation of people, so that you may tirelessly work for justice, freedom, and peace among all people.
May God bless you with the gift of tears to shed with those who suffer from pain, rejection, starvation, or the loss of all that they cherish, so that you may reach out your hand to comfort them and transform their pain into joy.
May God bless you with enough foolishness to believe that you really CAN make a difference in this world, so that you are able, with God’s grace, to do what others claim cannot be done.
May it be so on this day of beginning. Amen.
INFORMATION
Convocation Blessing, Rt. Rev. Jack McKelvey, Bishop, the Episcopal Diocese of Rochester
September 7, 2004