“May this home be blessed with the laughter of children, the warmth of a close family, and hope for a blessed future.”
Just 12 days after MSY volunteered our building skills at the Habitat for Humanity house a few blocks from the studio, I returned for an Affirmation Ceremony for the house’s new family. I was delighted to see that the front porch had been extended and a roof for it framed. In just a day of volunteering, I had become invested in the building of this house! A large group of people who had also helped build the house to date, along with representatives from the Frederick County Habitat for Humanity office, gathered to celebrate the progress so far and to welcome the family who will live there.
The Affirmation Ceremony is a tradition for every Habitat house that is built to recognize what can be created from community spirit and dedication to helping others realize home ownership. After welcoming the new family to the circle of those gathered, we all took a Sharpie marker and found a special spot on the wall studs to offer our blessing for the family’s lives in this new home. All those messages of hope, of encouragement, and of love will be enclosed within the walls once the drywall goes up, and wrap the family in their power forever.
I was so moved by this ceremony for its simple faith in the profound power of positive thinking and how offering our hearts can help change the lives of others for the better. In yoga we practice this same acceptance and understanding of our humanness and the ability to change our lives by living from our hearts, and in so doing, open the hearts of others.
This ceremony also formed a full circle of love that had begun in honoring our dear student Ruth Wales’ memory by donating our Truffle fundraiser’s profit in 2018 for this house to be built, then offering our labor a few weeks ago, and now giving our blessings to the family who will live there and join our community in the future. Ruth would have loved this project and would have been there with us wielding her own hammer with a huge smile and easy joke. I learned that she was a founding member of the Frederick County chapter of Habitat for Humanity and met many people at the ceremony who had worked with her and love her as we do. Thank you Ruth for your years of dedication to helping others realize their dreams.
May we live from our hearts in the essence of the all-pervading power of love.
–Carla
