We bless today all the masculinities with us and within us.

We bless you who shelter us and are queer,
you who grow flowers,
you who take up welding and are proud to work in a shower of sparks.
We bless you whose heart hammers at taking up a power drill,
you who know the names of the birds and trees, each life regarded and held gently.

We bless you, who paper over fear with swagger, your little bird heart beating fast,
Saying, “Let me be free, please don’t laugh.”

We bless those of us who don’t have words for what we feel,
Whose strength lies in planning, hoping hard that action will be enough.
There is a space for you in the landscape of vulnerability.

We bless those of us who are confident,
knowing in our bones our own value.

We bless those of us who live with disability,
who find new ways of loving a body, its essence, its gifts,
not just what it can do with ease.
May we find a measure of strength again each day for the journey.

We bless you who try new things at age sixty, seventy, eighty.
May you find joy and not perfection.

We bless you who have to figure out how to relax, intentionally,
for whom retirement is a mystery to be tried one day at a time.

We bless you who never made enough money to retire;
Those who hesitate to sign anything because the Law has always taken away and never given.
May your name come to mean power and not suspicion.

We bless you who live with a government name or an assigned gender that doesn’t fit.
May the place where you live come to join you in embracing complexity.

We anoint those of us who don’t seek healthcare,
who seek self-sufficiency because it is safe and proud.
May you learn the rest and risk of being cared for.

We bless those who find courage in speaking up for others.
May you teach others your gift of saying hard things with kindness.

We bless you,
you whose hearts are a brilliant magnolia print and those whose hearts are plaid;
Those who live your masculinity in a skirt with sequins and boots, who learned how to work a sewing machine in secret.
We bless you who wait for others to speak first; those who use your power to lift up voices around you,

And those of us who don’t recognize our power and need to be witnessed again and again to know we are seen,
We bless you, we bless you, we bless you, we witness you.

We bless you who shelter us and are queer,
you who grow flowers.
Your children are all around you.
We bless today all the masculinities with us
and within us.