When Blessings are Miracles

Elberon, NJ June 17, 2000 Aaron H. Schectman
THINKING ALLOWED
Essays on issues, ideas and reflections on the times. Published now and
then. Opinions pro or con are welcome. WHEN BLESSINGS ARE MIRACLES
Last night Rabbi Cy Stanway elaborated on some themes centered about
blessings. I was drawn to the notion that we are our own blessings and this
involves the miracle of knowing oneself, trusting and loving oneself and
knowing the difference between what is supernatural and normally human.

One should count his/her blessings. We don't often recognized how blessed
we are. Involved in the minutiae surrounding the ordinary mechanics of
living, we forget the simple things that make that life worth living. I
have been blessed with great amounts of energy and ability to get things
done. I have often thought in recent years that it would be a blessing to
have the services of young, strong children or grandchildren to do the heavy
lifting and carrying. I thought a lot about this as I went about boxing up
the books I will donate to the History Department at Monmouth University. I
had the ingenuity to know where to find strong boxes in these days of
breaking them up and baling them for recycling. I needed rest time to
survey the titles to select those that would do the students at MU the most
good. But hauling them in the boxes was a weighty problem. I partially
solved this by getting a box to the top of the stairs and sitting down with
it in my lap and dropping down tread by tread until I reached the bottom
without the weight on my arms, back and legs. It worked. I am blessed with
the ability to see problems from different angles.

Have you ever seen a blessing? Can you or I bless others? What is it like
not to be blessed with something good? Is having something else other than
a blessing being cursed? I have no answers. I have the feeling that all of
us are blessed with life and what we do after that is often up to some other
power. I usually bless the waitress who brings me an iced tea with enough
lemons in it to make it taste just the way I remember it should taste. I
have been looking for some time now for the perfect chocolate taste that
will replicate the shakes that were made for me (when I was about age five)
when my family were put up in someone's house while we were waiting for our
new apartment to be finished. The lady of that house is to be blessed for
that taste and I would fervently bless the person who could bring it back to
me. I don't think the foregoing was what Rabbi Cy had in mind.
Carol's Evaluation: 10 out of 10