Miryam Levy, Rabbinic Pastor, offers this beautiful poem by David Whyte for all the teachers and leaders who have passed on in the last few weeks including Rabbi David Cooper, Rev. C.T. Vivian and the Hon. John Lewis

Blessing (for One who Blessed) by David Whyte

May your palms be as good for blessing
now as when you lived and breathed,
may your voice still carry us as you used
to carry us when you filled a room
with laughter and we rode the tide
of your arriving shout.

May there be a way to bless from the place
you inhabit, may you extend your hands
and your old way of speaking from the horizon
where you live, and may you remember us
and bless us here, in this place, and in this time
in the lit room of our present imaginations
or in the reflected glass, lifted to you
or to one another, remembering you;
and wondering if you still remember us.

And as you have traveled the way before us,
ay you bless us especially on the long road
that starts from these words, in our meetings
and in our partings, in our simple wish to find a way
and especially, in our visible and invisible arrivals.

And because we have still to cross the threshold
that you have passed and make the journey
that you have completed, and because
we do not know from where you bless or even
if you still can bless, we need those words of yours
and that voice of yours, and the merciful world
behind that voice, and your laughter and your hands
turned toward us, as strong and as good as they ever were.