Sunday, November 14, 2010

Blessings

One of the sweet traditions in our congregation is “The Blessing of the Keys.” Shortly after a young person gets their driver's license the congregation blesses their car keys, praying for safe driving. At the beginning of the service the young person is called to the front of the church and there is a brief prayer. Then the young driver goes for a drive with a selected sponsor. At the end of service they return and the sponsor reports on the young driver's ability. The new driver is then given a new key chain as a token of our blessing.

This morning my seventeen-year-old granddaughter Sofie had her keys blessed. In fact she drove our youth minister to Starbucks and they talked until time to return. Her sponsor gave her an A+ on her driving skills and then said Sofie had received something quite wonderful when she returned to the church parking lot. She had received a phone call from the admissions office of the University of New Haven. Not only had she been admitted, she was awarded a significant scholarship. Her family heard this exciting news with the rest of the church. She truly did feel blessed this morning.

Yesterday I attended my first Bar Mitzvah. It was a beautiful, moving service. I cried several times as this young man was blessed by his family, his religious community and many friends. It is a wonderful thing to watch faith and heritage passed from one generation to the next with such love. Mazel tov David. You filled us all with pride.

I hope all our children all feel blessed with love by their families and their community.

7 comments:

poet said...

congratulations to your grand daughter on all of the good things in her live. you must be so proud in deed.

Tracy said...

What a wonderful tradition. Congratulations to her on her admission and scholarship news. God is good.

just me said...

congrats to sofie on her admission! E is waiting on her early action application to Elon.

we are so glad you were able to join us Saturday for David's bar mitzvah. it was a very special day for all of us.

it's so nice to have a surrogate grandma...

Miss Healthypants said...

I love the "blessing of the keys" ceremony!--how cool is that?! :) Of course, if I had been your granddaughter, I would have been afraid that I would crash the car, and then the youth minister would have had to report on my BAD driving. *grin*

Well, she did great--and congrats on her admission & scholarship! Life is indeed full of many blessings, big and small. :)

Middle Child said...

Blessing the keys - that is wonderful

Cazzie!!! said...

I love that idea. Ironic you should write of young people and driving. I just posted on Facebook about how angry I am to see young people not wearing seat belts, and drink driving, and killing themselves here on our streets. It pains me to have to nurse them, and nurse their families wqhen they break down and cry. Perhaps, if they had their keys blessed, and they were in a good community, these things would not occur so readily.

just me said...

hear hear Cazzie