Blessed Are Those Who Mourn

I'm sitting on the couch with my laptop open, holding my phone in my hand, when I read Jesus' words. I'm waiting for my mom to text me, as I scanned through this list of all who are blessed. Some of them are the most unlikely characters: the poor in spirit, the meek, the contrite, those who mourn, those who hunger and thirst to be good and upright people. Those who are abused. It's strange how the words of Scripture can travel. And these blessings in particular have made an incredible voyage. Jesus spoke the words, while sitting on a mountain. He left the crowd of people and gathered with his closest friends, and these pronouncements poured out of him. Many people have looked at this sermon, and they've seen it as a complete restructuring of how we ought to think as Christians. It's amazing how these bits of wisdom, echoed from that rocky crag to be passed down from generation to generation. These words--they were rolled into brittle parchment scrolls and archived in caves. The letters have been etched into animal hide so that they mingle with the pungent smell of leather as men and women read them. The syllables have been bound in heavy books, stored in monasteries, placed gingerly into a holder. They have been passed out in small tracts, left fluttering on street corners, and trampled by pedestrians. The words--they come in red and green fonts or on onion paper. They have been covered in colored plastic. Sometimes, you can still find them in the drawers of hotel rooms. And now they have come up on my computer screen, and I scroll through them in an entirely different manner.