Beato

A quote from Mary Morgaine Squire today for Wellness Wednesday:

Most people associate beatitudes with the well-known Sermon on the Mount, where Jesus gives a series of blessings to the kind and underprivileged sector of the population...

“Blessed are they who mourn, for they shall be comforted.”

“Blessed are they that hunger and thirst for justice, for they will be filled.”

etc….

But the concept and the word itself is a living noun, and I wonder why it became frozen in time. All of us are capable of giving and receiving great blessings.

Did you know that the term Beat Generation coined by Alan Ginsburg, Jack Kerouac and others was inspired by beatitude?

Kerouac wrote, “Beat doesn’t mean tired, or bushed, so much as it means beato, the Italian for beatific: to be in a state of beatitude, like Saint Francis, trying to love all life, trying to be utterly sincere with everyone, practicing endurance, kindness, cultivating joy of heart.”

Squire wrote her own Earth Beatitudes, which include "Blessed are the rays of the sun, for they shine upon earth no matter how dark we become...Blessed are the ones who creep and crawl, for they weave the balance into life’s web. Blessed are the trees, for they are the pillars of shelter and sustenance...and Blessed are the earth stewards, for they devote their lives to protecting all of this." She suggests taking time to weave our gratitude into a beatitude. I'll drop that seed in my brain and see what grows.

Happy Thanksgiving!