Count your blessings. How often do you hear this phrase? How often do you follow the giver's suggestion?
Since the birth of my son in August, I have become acutely more aware of my blessings. I haven't counted them in a 1-2-3 fashion, but I certainly have a new appreciation for them. Every morning when I see his smile, I am thankful for my ultimate blessing.
I always assumed blessings necessarily had a religious connotation. However, I was pleased to find the actual definition in the dictionary has an even broader appeal. A blessing is a thing conducive to happiness or welfare. So regardless of your faith tradition, or if you steer clear of religion altogether, blessings still apply. Something as basic as shelter and food are blessings, as they are more than conducive, but necessary, for one's welfare.
Due to the holidays, acknowledgement of our blessings, and those individuals who appear to have fewer of them, get more attention during November and December. In my mind the cooling weather plays a role as well. When the temperatures drop below 50 degrees, I am more apt to think about people who lack warm clothes and shelter; when the holidays roll around, even as I may dread packing up the car for various trips, I am reminded that I am blessed to have family to visit or even a car to take on that drive.
In preparing for this season's holidays, and in considering future issues of this magazine, assistant editor Lisa Greene and I spent a lunch hour at the Hope Center where we saw people in search of more blessings, and became more acutely aware of our own. A meeting with the founders of the Lexington Rescue Mission introduced me to a family whose members have become experts at providing blessings for others.
These organizations, and ones like them, exist year-round, but we tend to think of them more in December when, regardless of religion, a spirit of giving pervades throughout the month. It is heartening really. Good deeds abound; donations of time, talent, and kind acts are at the forefront of so many minds. Sure, unnecessary gifts and zooming around town in search of that special something also gets a fair amount of our focus, but the feeling behind all of that is the sameótrying to appropriately say "thank you," or "I love you," or "you are a blessing.
Take a moment this month to look around. Lexington is blessed. Many Lexingontians are blessed. However