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12 GROUNDCOVER NEWS VENDOR VOICES Will we Answer The Call For Blessings? Part 1 Somewhere in time – and recently in between essential errands, personal communications, a few job and volunteering seekings, and the last recent time! :/ I’ve sought ‘GC’ sales :0…, I came across a book that grabbed my attention while I was “charging” my phone and chargers. It’s a book about one of my favorite subjects; blessing. It’s a book by an Episcopal Cleric, Ms Adrian Dannhauser, entitled, “Ask me for a Blessing (You Know You Need One!)”. I picked up the book and started reading it, and I couldn’t put it down! (I did “check-it-out” at the circulation desk’ I “had to!” :) !!… ) If I wanted to, I could focus on all the particulars interspersed in this book that are directly contradictory to what GOD’S WORD, THE BIBLE, says. For example; I could fixate on what surely my Catholic friends and others and myself will surely regard as blasphemous! “Visions” of a woman with “a Staten Island accent,...a blue satin dress, and smoking a cigarette.” that the author claims is “Mary” (Dannhauser 118) The Mother of JESUS, appearing to her. Or, I could take up as a primary consideration, perhaps to rebuke the impugning of GOD that she includes in a poem by Catholic “monk and mystical poet (D 104) St John of The Cross that she writes of as having “scandalized” (D 104) her when she first read it (and it seems like that would really require “something!” :/…) If you desire to be Saved by JESUS, and be in Saving Relationship with HIM, Don’t “look-to” this book, for that. Dannhauser does recognize that it is Christian paradigm and doctrine that the means of fallen human Salvation occurs via CHRIST’S atoning blood. However she also variously hints at as if there are MANY! :0!!… ways and means to GOD, refers to THE HOLY SPIRIT in the feminine (D 98), and one could not find a “Romans Road” Salvation Map of any sort, in this book. She also disparages Christians exactly for seeking the Conversion – ie, The SALVATION that is BIBLICALLY ONLY! Via JESUS, in seeking Christian witness to others who don’t (yet?) believe-on HIM (D 20, 148-149), and seems to mock! The idea of Hell (D 20), though JESUS spoke of it more than any other person in the BIBLE. So what!? ??? ? do I LIKE? About this book? And what captured my wrapt attention for it? Throughout this book from Dannhauser there is just an engaging, candid earthiness; a witty depth of human perception, and loads! Of gracious human to human inspiration and understanding. Ironically, Ms Dannhauser’s “...Blessing...” book, specifically bless? What is our blessing mission and/or field? Who or what causes the most enthusiasm and passion in you, and why? There can be various specifics for AMANDA GALE Groundcover vendor No. 573 pulls us to GOD’S great tenderness, and HIS affirmings of us and that HE wants us to have for each other. So my article herein, is not a book review, but a reflective, thematic sojourn through some of the blessing mentionings that Ms Dannhauser’s book includes and touches upon. We each, all have an innate need for giving and receiving blessings; and the blessing life receives and gives the most benefits for each and all, and is therefore the most desirable. So what exactly is a blessing? Dannhauser offers several definitions— some her own and various inspirations from others. My best sum of words trying to perceive though not limit our experience of blessing is; an occurrence and/or declaration/pronouncement of a miracle, a gift, a greeting, a consecration, or favor/grace conferred from GOD and/or from one to another or each other. Blessing is elevating and esteeming. It looks past what isn’t, to what CAN! be. It looks beyond what is impossible and undesirable, to that realm of blissful realization that must occur via positive affirmations and willing reception of divine empowerment. Blessing says that we’re SPECIAL! – both the receiver and the giver – to be partaking in something so HOLY, and with each other. So what exactly does blessing do for the receivers and givers of it? Why do we need it? Amidst a myriad of very worthy topics, themes, and people-encounters that Dannhauser’s “...Blessing...” book mentions, I’m going to draw upon it for 3 themes about blessing/s that I want to share about. We humans – being in GOD’S image – though now also “Fallen” (cf Gen 3.6 w/7-13) – have some deep desires and needs. The blessing life/life of blessing meets us with purpose, value, and confident hope. Christians including myself affirm that we are created to glorify GOD, though also that HE really desires for us to enjoy HIM! and the relationships HE gives us, also. We also each have personal and vocational life callings. This can be thought of as for or to whom or what has GOD made us to each of us. I like Adrian Dannhauser’s inclusion of a Prayer from St Ignatius of Loyola—Founder of “the Order of The “Jesuits” “ (D 145) – though many Christians and myself share great concerns! about that “secret society” and believe that GOD DOESN’T! Establish these. I also don’t agree with praying to Mary – to whom this Prayer was originally addressed by Ignatius. However; here’s this beautiful PrayerThought that can of course be instead directed to GOD. Here it is, as my adaptation of it; “Place me with YOUR SON.” Dannhauser expands on this; Place me with Y(OUR) S(ON). Knowing it will sometimes hurt, place me with (YOUR) (son). Knowing it’s what the world needs, place me with Y(OUR) S(ON). Knowing I’ll have abundant life, place me with Y(OUR) S(ON). Place me with Y(OUR) S(ON), my L(ORD) and my LOVE.” (D 146) I have some additional prayer musings of my own, spawned from it; Let me be with YOUR SON—ALWAYS. Thank YOU that NOTHING! CAN EVER! SEPARATE us (cf Romans 8.38-39) Let me be ALWAYS where HE is, DOING WHAT HE DOES/IS DOING; Wherever HE is WELCOME, and There is NEED. Please bless me to Receive and Bless SPECIAL People in my LIFE with YOUR HOLY LOVE. GIVE me YOUR SPIRIT’S FIRE. Please use me as one of YOUR BLESSING Vessels. In JESUS’ Name, Amen. JESUS always brings blessing to those who will receive HIM. HIS presence with us is a blessing and invites blessing/s. Thus whoever is “With HIM” will innately bring HIS blessings to others. Another aspect of our deep desires and needs as beings human, is for affirmation of our worth and value. So where do we find JESUS, in HIS 1st Advent on This Earth? always busy doing good, praying to HIS/our FATHER; AND OFTEN WITH THE POOR AND THE OUTCAST. Dannhauser mentions that the primacy JESUS gives, “to people experiencing hardship and those standing...with... them...” is undeniable.” (D 115) Dannhauser also references, that in the Beatitudes, “we get quite the list of people whom JESUS calls blessed: the poor, the hungry, those who weep, those who mourn,...the persecuted... (etc).” (D 114) She also mentions “Liberation Theology”, “which started as a movement in the 1960s within the Catholic Church and Latin America and also with Black Churches in the United States...(It) begins with the presumption that people who suffer from poverty and injustice are a privileged channel for GOD’S grace.” (D 116) Students of history will realize this is a direct contrast to the “Divine Right of Kings” theory – which basically suggests that simply because a person or group is in a position of power—that that somehow evidences as if GOD is giving them approval to do “whatever!” they want (quotation, mine). Imperialism stems from thought trend such as this. As if we have something that somehow as if means that we are to selfishly and even oppressively use it—it it’s our desire to do so. The wealthy can conquer and wield-over, as they like. Further approving of “Liberation Theology”, Dannhauser mentions that this view recognizes that “GOD is with the least and the marginal in a way that G(OD) is not with the rest of the world. G(OD) sides with them and invites everyone to do the same.” (D 116) However, the often violent! Revolutions that “Liberation Theology” asserts, also contrasts the peaceful blessing SPIRIT OF CHRIST. And besides, our need goes deeper still, to the core of our beings for GOD’S blessing and receiving of us. For those of us willing to accept JESUS and receive GOD’S grace, Dannhauser’s reminder that “G(OD) approves of us even when G(OD) doesn’t approve of what we’re doing” (D 42), exactly! rings true. Of course we know that JESUS suffered and died to atone for our sin/s and will thus forgive whomever reveives HIM! ; but do we really let it sink into our consciousness and our hearts that JESUS suffered and “died for (us) because (we’re) worth it” (D 88) ?, as Dannhauser so beautifully, relevantly reminds us. As Christian Contemporary Singing-Artist Zach Williams also reminds us; There’s only love in the heart of GOD; HE’S not sittin’ there writin’ you off, wishin’ you lost. HE’s not sittin’ there writin’ you off; HE went to that Cross, HE went to that Cross!” (Zach Williams, Jonathan Smith, Erin Hulse ; “Heart of G(OD; )” To be Continued... JUNE 26, 2026

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