“Discomfort is the price of admission to a meaningful life.”
~ Susan David
Many Happy Returns
For as long as I can remember, when celebrating a birthday in our family, after grace and before we eat, we speak a blessing to the person who is having a birthday. If we aren’t together, we call on the phone and speak the blessing across the miles.
Many happy returns on the day of thy birth
Many seasons of sunshine be given
May god in his mercy prepare you on earth
For a beautiful birthday in heaven
It just isn’t a birthday without those words. Words that have come to mean the best of home and family, grace and connection. In spite of our differences and many imperfections, it is the perfect blessing to speak into the lives of those we love.
Many happy returns on the day of thy birth
Since the 1700s those words have meant a wish that the recipient of the word lives to experience that day coming again and again and again, and that those years will be filled with happiness. Every trip around the sun is a gift, and to begin a new year with a wish for more to come, sets a new adventure in living off on the right foot.
Many seasons of sunshine be given
There is a rhythm to life that is lived out through the changing seasons. The season of sunshine is the growing season. The time when the fruits of our labors ripen on the branch, and when that which we have sown with our lives grows into fullness and nourishes the world around us.
May god in his (and her) mercy prepare you on earth
We are a small part of a much larger story. One that is far beyond what we can think, dream or imagine. We are always in preparation for what comes next, and everything that happens to us also happens for us. Not done to us by some distant hand to teach us a lesson, but in the company of a loving unseen presence to transform us into the fullness of who we are meant to be.
For a beautiful birthday in heaven
Try as we might, we can’t see beyond the horizon of death. It isn’t ours to know. All we have is now, and what we have to work with is our life . How we live here is meant to be a picture of how we will live there. On earth as it is in heaven.
Today as I start my 67th trip around the sun, this blessing reminds me that I am here to craft a meaningful life. One that will continue to touch the world for good long after I’m gone.
