A Book Of Blessings - an inspiring and comforting and deeply touching collection of blessings for every moment in life from international bestselling author John O’Donohue

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Then, become an ordained minister online with AMM and learn how to celebrate life rites in your community, including funerals, weddings, handfastings, and other blessings. This all makes me want to burst out in song as in Tom Lehrer’s “We Are the Folk Song Army” (folksongs being so closely related to junk poetry) whose memorable lyrics go; In this love, you are understood as you are without mask or pretension. The superficial and functional lies and half-truths of social acquaintance fall away, you can be as you really are. Love allows understanding to dawn, and understanding is precious. Where you are understood, you are at home. Understanding nourishes belonging. When you really feel understood, you feel free to release yourself into the trust and shelter of the other person’s soul… This art of love discloses the special and sacred identity of the other person. Love is the only light that can truly read the secret signature of the other person’s individuality and soul. Love alone is literate in the world of origin; it can decipher identity and destiny. A call comes from within to wake up to explore new and unknown territories. Is it exciting? Is it frightening? Is it both exciting and frightening? If I were only able to take three poems with me for the rest of my life, this would be one of them, from Irish poet and philosopher John O'Donohue:

His ecclesiastical superiors became suspicious of his growing reputation. They sought to clip his wings by imprisoning him in a busy curacy where they hoped he would have less time for flights of fancy. In the Celtic tradition, there is a beautiful understanding of love and friendship. One of the fascinating ideas here is the idea of soul-love; the old Gaelic term for this is anam cara. Anam is the Gaelic word for soul and cara is the word for friend. So anam cara in the Celtic world was the “soul friend.” In the early Celtic church, a person who acted as a teacher, companion, or spiritual guide was called an anam cara. It originally referred to someone to whom you confessed, revealing the hidden intimacies of your life. With the anam cara you could share your inner-most self, your mind and your heart. This friendship was an act of recognition and belonging. When you had an anam cara, your friendship cut across all convention, morality, and category. You were joined in an ancient and eternal way with the “friend of your soul.” The Celtic understanding did not set limitations of space or time on the soul. There is no cage for the soul. The soul is a divine light that flows into you and into your Other. This art of belonging awakened and fostered a deep and special companionship. Illustration by Maurice Sendak from Let’s Be Enemies by Janice May Udry The kind of friendship one finds in an anam cara, O’Donohue argues, is a very special form of love — not the kind that leads us to pit the platonic against the romantic but something much larger and more transcendent: Reading it, I couldn't help but feel that it's as appropriate today as it's ever been, that it speaks to more than just marriage but to our relationships with one another on a grander, human scale. What gifts are hiding in this suffering? Personally, my gifts have come in the form of long, deep talks during daily walks and nightly games with my husband. The gifts are in sharing a glass of socially distant wine with friends across their porch. The gifts are in the solitude and quiet of every day.We spend a lot of time talking about wedding ceremonies here on the American Weddings blog. This makes sense... Wedding ceremonies (and wedding officiants) are awesome! And they’re our primary focus and passion. Over the last few months I have very much been enjoying the writings and poetry of John O’Donohue. A writer of unique power to me (and many others), John captured a great sense of wonder of the natural world and a deep wisdom and kindness born from a life of studying philosophy and theology. He had also been a Catholic priest for 17 years and left that service to concentrate more on his writings. They may have hoped that his imagination would wilt somewhat under the sodden weight of careful clerical conversation in the presbytery. It was as if (former All-Ireland club champions) Crossmolina GAA confined the contribution of (star footballer) Ciarán McDonald to carrying the jerseys for their third-string team. Celebrations of Life: Wild Child Reverend Scarlett’s memorial services honor people in the same ways they lived

This poem, by John O’Donohue, honors the grief of losing someone so dear to our heart, while celebrating the memory of a vibrant life well lived. For people jaded by the blandness of conventional Irish Catholicism, John O'Donohue opened up new vistas of exploration and experience, writes Kevin Hegarty. There have been many times in my life that I have felt helpless or even useless. Particularly in situations when I feel I have no influence or control: an aggressive or destructive weather pattern, a friend with an incurable disease who is in pain, a friend whose partner walked out, extreme political upheaval and of course pandemics, like the Corona Virus, that loom over all media platforms and test our faith in systems, as well as within ourselves. Recently, I have been enjoying the work of John O’Donohue, who was an Irish writer and poet. My favorite book of his, To Bless the Space Between Us, is a collection of blessings to help readers through struggles and everyday concerns of life. There is something deeply kind and wise about his words, something which is encouraging and inspires hope during times of transition, challenge, new beginnings.While many of our ministers only conduct wedding ceremonies, others also conduct baptisms, funerals, baby blessings, and other meaningful rites. O’Donohue’s poem has helped shape my attitude as I entered this stage of my life -- my marriage to my now-husband which happened three weeks ago today -- a threshold to a new beginning, an occasion for a fresh perspective and fresh energy. But nowhere do the beauty, mystery, and soul-sustenance of friendship come more vibrantly alive than in the 1997 masterwork Anam Cara: A Book of Celtic Wisdom ( public library) by the late, great Irish poet and philosopher John O’Donohue (January 1, 1956–January 4, 2008), titled after the Gaelic for “soul-friend”— a beautiful concept that elegantly encapsulates what Aristotle and Emerson and Lewis articulated in many more words. Take a moment for yourself. Really feel into what’s activated in you around the Corona Virus pandemic. What would be the best way to serve yourself and the greater whole right now? We’d love to hear your gentle comments. Comment on how you aim to serve the Unified field of Unity, Peace, and Love.