20 years ago — March 10, 1997
“What if, when you woke in the morning, you sang:
‘Bless to me O God,
My heart and my speech,
And bless to me, O God,
The handling of my hand;
Strength and busyness of morning,
Habitat and temper of modesty,
Force and wisdom of thought,
And Thine own path, O God of virtues.
Till I go to sleep this night.’
Would saying that prayer make a difference to your day? In the middle of a conference call or fixing breakfast for your children, would “you remember to ask God to bless ‘the handling of my hand’ in all you did? Especially now, at Lent, does this prayer call you? … These lyrics are both hymns and prayers, sung and spoken … on the mainland of Scotland and its Western Isles. Collected in the 19th century by Alexander Carmichael, they stun us today with their fidelity, their present tense, their invitation to Christ to be present in the” ordinary things we do.
From “Bless to me the handling of my hand” by Helen Currie Foster
