original blessing (erin jean warde)
inspiration
"Before anything else is true about us — before we can talk about what we are good at or what we are bad at, what we loathe and what we favor, before we can talk about gifts or struggles, virtues or vices, before we can even begin to talk about what it might mean for us to be saved — what is true is that we are in a relationship with God,* and God started it…. Fidelity and steadfast love are God’s main character traits.”
—Danielle Shroyer, from Original Blessing
*I’m very aware that I have a vast crew of people — some religious and some not, some Christian and some not, etc. — who follow my work, for which I am deeply grateful. For that reason, I hope you will receive God language in a way that helps you connect with the spiritual source that is most meaningful for you. Maybe it’s the Spirit, or the Divine, whatever that might be, I hope to make clear that my speaking of God is offered without the necessity of dogma that claims to have figured out God, and instead out of a heart for being faithful to the mystery of spirituality that allows me to stay with God when I want to leave.
contemplation
Much of my understanding of God has, over time, become focused on the overwhelmingly beautiful idea that I was made in God’s image. It has shaped how I understand my mind, body, and soul, influenced in large part by how Danielle Shroyer describes the theology of original blessing. I struggled with it at first, because I feel very aware of the difficulties of life, and the ways other people who were made in God’s image have been oppressed. However, original blessing isn’t about denying the truth of the headline news, but instead about acknowledging that even amidst that, the Spirit is present to us. Original blessing proclaims the reminder that the evil of the world does not suggest God has abandoned us, because abandoning us is not even an option because of the nature of God.
When people ask me to pray for them, I like to pray they would remember that God’s grace precedes and follows them, because I believe the nature of the Spirit is to be forever restoring us, loving us before we ask for it, forgiving us before we even fully have the awareness of our wrongdoing. I can become very focused on what I am good at, bad at, my gifts and struggles, forgetting that my worth cannot be placed in these terms because, at the very outset of time, my worth was already named by God as good. The rest might form my thoughts, my days, how I exist on this earth, but it cannot form my worth; it doesn’t have access to the space where it could even try, because my worth is defined only by an irrevocable blessing.
However this finds you today, I hope you are able to receive this as a reminder that the foundation of your identity is a worthiness that was, at the outset of time, blessed and called good.
reflection
How are you assessing your worth based on what you’re good at, bad at, your gifts, your struggles, your virtues, or your vices?
How might you try to — when these pop up to try to define your worth — respond to them with the proclamation of the blessing that calls you good?
programs & offerings
〰 1:1 coaching is always open! we can begin coaching anytime.
〰 I will be open for more spiritual directees in May! say hi if you’re interested, so we can discern whether or not we’d be a good fit.
interests & joys
〰 it’s packing, moving, and writing all the way down
〰 I am feeling organizationally broken so I am going to try bullet journaling, because I always got overwhelmed by complex bujos, but I’ve recently realized I can have a very simple one, so fingers crossed!