Seventeen years ago, when I knelt for my ordination, in the laying on of hands I felt the weight of all my faith community's history. And now when I participate in an ordination, I make sure to press my hands hard on the ordinand. Sometimes this is a symbolic visit, as when we witness two people promise to make a life together. Kitchens house suffering, too. Some kitchens house bare cupboards, or refrigerators, or tables full of life's last medications.
Some kitchens are a microwave in a motel room.
And in some kitchens, someone has been smashing a thing or a person, or has punched their arm through a pane of glass in the back door, leaving a child to stare forever at the blood that remains. There is a blessing I use at weddings that always makes me cry twice. First, when I look at a beautifully dressed couple in the full blossom of happiness, and next when I stand in a kitchen of suffering or beside a deathbed when one partner is now in a johnny and the other wears whatever was handy. We all need this blessing. We all provide this blessing.