Friday, February 4, 2011

"What Does it Mean to be BLESSED?"

Most of the people we see on television or listen to on the radio talk fervently about being "blessed." They nearly always connect blessed with success,  financial reward, health, personal relationships, status, spirituality, and so forth.

Some of us on the enlightenment journey have become curious about what it means to be blessed. WE want to know what events, circumstances or experiences classify as being blessed. And who are the people that seem to get the most blessings?

Very rarely, if ever, do we hear anyone talking about not being blessed. We are curious about the people who are facing foreclosures, the victims of prolonged unemployment, the ones who are suffering from incurable illnesses, and those who are suffering for the loss of loved ones. Are they blessed?

Similarly, there are some actions that create both blessings and despair. There are some people who become blessed by wealth, fame, status, and so forth only to watch it slip away from them. While there are others who find themselves scuffling to get by. They are always living from paycheck-to-paycheck with no end in sight. Are they blessed?

There are some people who create for themselves lavish lifestyles. They work hard everyday to accomplish their goals. Some of them are familiar faces to us. We follow them in sports, politics, entertainment, business, and so forth. And from afar, they seem blessed. Are they really blessed or the beneficiaries of hard work?

Some of us who hear the blessed people's constant pronouncements of "being blessed" find them to be somewhat confusing, demeaning. Particularly, when so many of them attribute their blessings to God, The Creator, Allah, and so forth.

Perhaps they are correct in their assertions about the origins of blessings. Nevertheless, there are still some of us who want to know why so many millions, let's make that billions, of people are not blessed? And more importantly: Why they never express gratitude for not being blessed?

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