(I am at the moment saddled with work and will not be able to write anything new. Upon the suggestion of Mike Palacios, I will, from time to time, be reprinting some of the stuff I’ve written for different magazines and books. At least there will be something new to read for people who visit my blog. I hope you enjoy this one).

Modern Day Beatitudes

Blessed are the strange, the weird, the people we laugh at, those who do not fit our mold, especially the socially wretched and despised. By their presence in our lives, they expand our reality—on our part, reluctantly and on theirs, so painfully—by forcing us to look at them in the hope that we see the God in them.

Blessed are the depressed and the addicted for they are called upon to demonstrate the healing miracles of God through their own awakening.

Blessed are the broken, those who fail, those who fall below our expectations for they are asked to show the rest of us that not being perfect is part of the human condition—that accepting our imperfection is the first step in our realization of the divine perfection of all that is.

Blessed are the nameless, the faceless the dispossessed—the refugees, the homeless and the poor for they point us to the way to compassion. By their sheer numbers, they tell us that ultimately, the experience of compassion is inescapable.

Blessed are the cruel, the calloused and uncaring, for on some deep unconscious level, they choose to delay their own liberation so that others may be ‘enlightened’ by their example.

Blessed are those who arouse us to anger, who bring out the worst in us, for they force us out of the denial that we harbor within—that we are hooked on them, that they resonate with something hidden inside us, and to break free, we must let go of our misguided moral superiority.

Blessed are those who cause us to suffer repeatedly by their mistakes, for they are our tutors who spend valuable time so that we learn our lessons well.

Blessed are those who do not seem to have a life, and especially those who do not have a choice—those who are physically debilitated, paralyzed or in a coma and cannot move, for they bring us a message that is lost in this age of frenzy—that to be worthy of God’s love, we need not strive to do or achieve anything, but simply be.

Blessed are all of us, for whatever condition we find ourselves in, we can choose to remember our true nature, our original blessing, our timeless

grace—anytime, any place, and always—and be happy in our Oneness.

(Lifted from ‘Between Blinks–More Random Takes on Everything’, by Jim Paredes , Anvil Publishing Inc., 2000 and updated October 2002)