The Painted Prayerbook

If I Have a Favorite

November 7, 2026

The season of Advent means
there is something on the horizon
the likes of which we have
never seen before.

—from Night Visions:
Searching the Shadows of Advent and Christmas

_____________________

People sometimes ask me if I have a favorite among my books. Officially, I don’t. Every book has been its own journey that has invited something different of me. But just between you and me, I will say that Night Visions holds a particular place in my heart.

It was my second book, and the first one to include my artwork (very early Richardson pieces!). Along with the artwork, I created reflections, poetry, and prayers as a way to explore the more shadowed terrain that Advent and Christmas can hold. I know that for so many, the holidays can be a nearly overwhelming swirl of hurry, pressure, and expectations about being cheerful and bright. Advent and Christmas offer so much more than this, with their invitation to be present to the Love that meets us so specifically in who we are, both seen and unseen. I created Night Visions because I wanted to say that in the darkness and in the daylight, God is here, and here, and here. In all of it.

It always means so much to me when someone tells me that the book helped them—that in a time that held pain, grief, fear, or simply too much that was pressing on them, they could open this book, take a breath, and be present to the hope, joy, and love that move through the season.

To each one who has traveled with Night Visions, thank you. For everyone as we move through these days and toward the sacred season ahead, so many blessings.

_____________________

To find Night Visions: Searching the Shadows of Advent and Christmas,
visit the Advent page at my website.

Posted in Advent, art, Christmas, Epiphany | 6 Comments »

All Hallows Blessing

October 29, 2026

Image: A Gathering of Spirits
© Jan Richardson

We are coming up on a trio of days that I have loved for a long time: Halloween, the Feast of All Saints, and the Feast of All Souls. I am grateful for the thin place that these days hold, and for the ways they remind us how close the worlds always are, even when they feel horribly far apart.

At this time of year, I am thinking especially of those who have lost beloved ones since this time last year, and whose grief is new and raw. And I am thinking also of those who have carried their grief for a long time.

These days invite us into memory and hope—and sorrow and joy and, most of all, love. Wherever you are, whatever you are holding, may you be met with solace and mysterious grace. This blessing is for you. Every single day.

All Hallows Blessing

Who live
in the spaces between
our breathing

in the corner
of our vision

in the hollows
of our bones

in the chambers
of our heart:

nowhere can they
be touched
yet still

how they move us

how they move
in us

made from the
tissue of memory
like the veil
between the worlds

that stirs at
the merest breath
this night
and then is
at rest.

—Jan Richardson
from How the Stars Get in Your Bones: A Book of Blessings

_____________________

Using Jan’s artwork
To use the image A Gathering of Spirits, please visit this page at janrichardsonimages.com.

Using Jan’s words
For worship services and related settings, you are welcome to use this blessing without requesting permission. All that’s needed is to acknowledge the source. Please include this info in a credit line: “© Jan Richardson from How the Stars Get in Your Bones. janrichardson.com.” For other uses, visit Copyright Permissions.

Posted in blessings, mystery, sacred time | 5 Comments »

Blessing the Table

September 30, 2026

Image: The Best Supper
© Jan Richardson

Near the end of her life, one of my aunts was at a dinner table at the home of friends. During the dinner, she asked a pastor who was at the table, “What do you think heaven is like?” The pastor paused, looked around the table, and said, “I think it’s a lot like this, only with more people.” I love how a table invites us to know this, and how it calls us into a life that is not just for “someday” but is present here and now.

This Sunday is World Communion Sunday. In celebration and in hope, this blessing is for you. Every day.

And the Table Will Be Wide

And the table
will be wide.
And the welcome
will be wide.
And the arms
will open wide
to gather us in.
And our hearts
will open wide
to receive.

And we will come
as children who trust
there is enough.
And we will come
unhindered and free.
And our aching
will be met
with bread.
And our sorrow
will be met
with wine.

And we will open our hands
to the feast
without shame.
And we will turn
toward each other
without fear.
And we will give up
our appetite
for despair.
And we will taste
and know
of delight.

And we will become bread
for a hungering world.
And we will become drink
for those who thirst.
And the blessed
will become the blessing.
And everywhere
will be the feast.

—Jan Richardson
from How the Stars Get in Your Bones: A Book of Blessings

_____________________

Using Jan’s artwork
To use the image The Best Supper, please visit this page at janrichardsonimages.com.

Posted in blessings, Ordinary Time, sacred time | 2 Comments »

At the Burning Bush

August 29, 2026

Image: The Burning Bush
© Jan Richardson

Reading from the Hebrew Scriptures, Year A, Proper 17/Ordinary 22/Pentecost +14: Exodus 3:1-15

God called to him out of the bush,
“Moses, Moses!”
And he said, “Here I am.”
—Exodus 3:4

It is not always as plain as a burning bush. When a door opens to us, when a threshold appears with our name on it, that invitation and call can sometimes be wildly difficult to perceive at first. In the midst of all the distractions around us and within us, may we keep learning how to clear our attention. May we know what is ours to do, and may we receive the courage to do it. This day, this blessing is for you.

Blessing at the Burning Bush

You will have to decide
if you want this—
want the blessing
that comes to you
on an ordinary day,
when you are minding
your own path,
bent on the task before you
that you have done
a hundred times,
a thousand.

You will have to choose
for yourself
whether you will attend
to the signs;
whether you will open your eyes
to the searing light, the heat;
whether you will open
your ears, your heart
to the voice
that knows your name,
that tells you this place
where you stand—
this ground so familiar
and therefore unregarded—
is, in fact,
holy.

You will have to discern
whether you have
defenses enough
to rebuff the call,
excuses sufficient
to withstand the pull
of what blazes before you;
whether you will
hide your face,
will turn away,
back toward—
what, exactly?

No path from here
could ever be
ordinary again,
could ever become
unstrange to you,
whose seeing
has been scorched
beyond all salving.

You will know your path
not by how it shines
before you
but by how it burns
within you,
leaving you whole
as you go from here,
blazing with
your inarticulate,
your inescapable
yes.

—Jan Richardson
from How the Stars Get in Your Bones: A Book of Blessings

_____________________

Using Jan’s artwork
To use the image The Burning Bush, please visit this page at janrichardsonimages.com.

Posted in blessings, lectionary, Ordinary Time | 4 Comments »

What We Get to Keep

August 7, 2026

Image: What We Get to Keep
© Jan Richardson

From time to time I find myself wondering—Amid all the losses and letting go that life requires of us, is there anything we get to keep? Is there anything that returns to us, not in the same form by which we once knew it, but in a way that reminds us that through all the changes and impermanence, there is something that endures, that has the capacity to stay with us? Something that comes as the opposite of loss, or as its antidote; something that repairs a seam of our heart with its unexpected return.

If you wonder this, too, this is a blessing for you.

Sometimes What Goes from Us

Perhaps it will come
as the lightest thing
imaginable,
a gentleness
you had thought
impossible
nesting in the hollow
of your hand—

the blessed
gift of it
nothing you would
have dreamed
but for how it now
appears,
come to tell you

sometimes
what goes from us,
remains;

sometimes
what flies from us,
returns.

—Jan Richardson
from How the Stars Get in Your Bones: A Book of Blessings

_____________________

Using Jan’s artwork
To use the image What We Get to Keep, please visit this page at janrichardsonimages.com.

Posted in art, blessings, mystery | 2 Comments »

Blessing for the Place Between

July 18, 2026

Image: Between Heaven and Earth
© Jan Richardson

Reading from the Hebrew Scriptures, Year A, Proper 11/Ordinary 16/Pentecost +8: Genesis 28:10-19a

And [Jacob] dreamed that there was a stairway set up on the earth, the top of it reaching to heaven, and the angels of God were ascending and descending on it.
—Genesis 28:12

If you are betwixt, if you are between, if you are in the midst and the middle and the muck, if you have left what you have known and cannot yet see the way ahead, this is for you.

Blessing for the Place Between

When you come
to the place between.

When you have left
what you held
most dear.

When you are traveling
toward the life
you know not.

When you arrive
at the hardest ground.

May it become
for you
a place to rest.

May it become
for you
a place to dream.

May the pain
that has pressed itself
into you
give way
to vision,
to knowing.

May the morning
make of it
an altar,
a path,
a place to begin
again.

—Jan Richardson
from The Cure for Sorrow: A Book of Blessings for Times of Grief

_____________________

Using Jan’s artwork
To use the image Between Heaven and Earth, please visit this page at janrichardsonimages.com.

Using Jan’s words
For worship services and related settings, you are welcome to use this blessing without requesting permission. All that’s needed is to acknowledge the source. Please include this info in a credit line: “© Jan Richardson from The Cure for Sorrow: A Book of Blessings for Times of Grief. janrichardson.com.” For other uses, visit Copyright Permissions.

Posted in art, blessings, lectionary, Ordinary Time, sacred time | 6 Comments »

Grateful Blessing

June 28, 2026

Image: Gesture of Grace
© Jan Richardson

At this time of year, I am thinking so much about friends and colleagues who are on the move—who are leaving the communities they have known and entering into new forms of ministry as they begin new appointments, retire, or go on leave or a sabbatical. I wrote a blessing for one of those friends a while back and wanted to share it with you, for this time. If you are in any kind of threshold-y season, or know someone who is, this is for you.

This Day We Say Grateful
A Sending Blessing

It is a strange thing
to be so bound
and so released
all in the same moment,
to feel the heart
open wide
and wider still,
even as it turns
to take its leave.

On this day,
let us say
this is simply the way
love moves
in its ceaseless spiraling,
turning us toward
one another,
then sending us
into what waits for us
with arms open wide to us
in welcome
and in hope.

On this day,
in this place
where you have
poured yourself out,
where you have been
emptied
and filled
and emptied again,
may you be aware
more than ever
of what your heart
has opened to
here,
what it has tended
and welcomed
here,
where it has broken
in love and in grief,
where it has given
and received blessing
in the unfathomable mystery
that moves us,
undoes us,
and remakes us,
finally,
for joy.

This day
may you know
this joy
in full measure.

This day
may you know
this blessing
that gathers you in
and sends you forth
but will not
forget you.

Oh hear us
as this day
we say
grace,
this day
we say
grateful,
this day
we say
blessing,
this day
we release you
into God’s keeping
and hold you
in gladness
and love.

—Jan Richardson
from How the Stars Get in Your Bones: A Book of Blessings

_____________________

Using Jan’s artwork
To use the image Gesture of Grace, please visit this page at janrichardsonimages.com.

Using Jan’s words
For worship services and related settings, you are welcome to use this blessing without requesting permission. All that’s needed is to acknowledge the source. Please include this info in a credit line: “© Jan Richardson from How the Stars Get in Your Bones: A Book of Blessings. janrichardson.com.” For other uses, visit Copyright Permissions.

Posted in art, blessings, Ordinary Time, sacred time | 1 Comment »

Blessing of Hope

June 12, 2026

Image: She Said This Feels Like Hope
© Jan Richardson

Leaving this here for myself today, and also for you, in case you might need it in these days. So many blessings to you, with deep gratitude.

Blessing of Hope

So may we know
the hope
that is not just
for someday
but for this day—
here, now,
in this moment
that opens to us:

hope not made
of wishes
but of substance,

hope made of sinew
and muscle
and bone,

hope that has breath
and a beating heart,

hope that will not
keep quiet
and be polite,

hope that knows
how to holler
when it is called for,

hope that knows
how to sing
when there seems
little cause,

hope that raises us
from the dead—

not someday
but this day,
every day,
again and
again and
again.

—Jan Richardson
from The Cure for Sorrow: A Book of Blessings for Times of Grief

P.S. I want to let you know about this online event happening this Saturday (June 13) with In Good Company Foundation. There’s still time to join!

Saturday, June 13, 2026
Holding the Light: A Conversation with Jan Richardson
Online via Zoom, 11 am-1 pm EDT

I am so looking forward to this online event offered by In Good Company Foundation (via Zoom) on June 13! This event will invite us to honor the light within each of us and surrounding us, even on the darkest night. I’ll share readings from my new book, How the Stars Get in Your Bones, as we enter into conversation about love, grief, blessings, hope, and bearing the light in a heartbreaking world. We would love for you to join us from wherever you are!

Info & registration: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/holding-the-light-a-conversation-with-poet-jan-richardson-via-zoom-tickets-1983080983605.

Registration will remain open until the event starts. The event will be recorded so that everyone who registers can have access to it afterward, regardless of whether you’re able to join us that day.

If you have any questions, please contact In Good Company Foundation directly, and they will be glad to help.

_____________________

Using Jan’s words
For worship services and related settings, you are welcome to use this blessing without requesting permission. All that’s needed is to acknowledge the source. Please include this info in a credit line: “© Jan Richardson from The Cure for Sorrow: A Book of Blessings for Times of Grief. janrichardson.com.” For other uses, visit Copyright Permissions.

Posted in blessings, mystery | Leave a Comment »

Pentecost: A Blessing in the Fire

May 22, 2026

Reading from the Book of Acts, Day of Pentecost: Acts 2:1-21

Pentecost arrives to remind us that ashes do not have the final word, and that fire does not come only to consume. It comes also to bless, to call, to inspire, to give to us what we could never begin to imagine on our own.

—Jan Richardson, from Pentecost: What the Fire Gives
The Painted Prayerbook

_____________________

On Ash Wednesday this year, as Lent began, I wrote about how I don’t want to romanticize the ashes that can come with devastation and destruction. Instead, I want to stay curious about what God can do with ashes and with dust, and to continue to discern the ways I can be part of what God might be creating anew.

I am thinking about this again as we approach the Day of Pentecost. We have traveled through many weeks since the beginning of Lent. This arc of time that began with ashes will end with fire, that vivid image and symbol of the Spirit that comes to Jesus’ followers in the wake of his physical departure. And where fire might rightly conjure images of more devastation and ashes, on this day, it comes instead with Spirit, with new life, with the miracle of speaking and understanding, and with a transforming call.

This day, and throughout the coming season, what word might this fire hold for us? What might we most need to speak, and where might we listen for a word that someone else needs to say?

As Pentecost arrives, this blessing is for you, with deep gratitude.

What the Fire Gives
A Blessing for Pentecost

You had thought that fire
only consumed,
only devoured,
only took for itself,
leaving merely ash
and memory
of something
you had believed,
if not permanent,
would be long enough,
enduring enough,
to be nearly
eternal.

So when you felt
the scorching on your lips,
the searing in your heart,
you could not
at first believe
that flame could be
so generous,
that when it came to you—
you, in your sackcloth
and sorrow—
it did not come
to consume,
to take still more
than everything.

What surprised you most
were not the syllables
that spilled from
your scalded,
astonished mouth—
though that was miracle
enough,
to have words
burn through
what had been numb,
to find your tongue
aflame with a language
you did not know
you knew—

no, what came
as greatest gift
was to be so heard
in the place
of your deepest
silence,
to be so seen
within the blazing,
to be met
with such completeness
by what the fire gives.

—Jan Richardson
from Circle of Grace: A Book of Blessings for the Seasons

_____________________

Using Jan’s artwork
To use the image What the Fire Gives, please visit this page at janrichardsonimages.com.

Using Jan’s words
For worship services and related settings, you are welcome to use this blessing without requesting permission. All that’s needed is to acknowledge the source. Please include this info in a credit line: “© Jan Richardson from Circle of Grace: A Book of Blessings for the Seasons. janrichardson.com.” For other uses, visit Copyright Permissions.

Posted in blessings, lectionary, sacred time | 3 Comments »

Ascension Day/Easter 7: Blessing the Distance

May 14, 2026

Reading from the Gospels, Ascension Day (often celebrated the Sunday after): Luke 24:44-53

On this Ascension Day, I am struck all over again by how, in Luke’s account of the Ascension, he tells us that as Jesus is leaving the disciples—and the earthly life (and death, and life) he has known with them—he blesses them. With this last gesture, this final word, Jesus acknowledges that blessing and leaving are deeply bound together, and that love somehow endures within every aching distance that happens in this life.

This is a wondrous and difficult grace.

Jesus is not trying to sugarcoat his leaving. He is not giving his beloved disciples a blessing as a consolation prize for having come through these wild years with him, only to see him go. Instead, with this blessing, Jesus shows that the substance of grief is also the substance of love. They are made of the same stuff. If we can stay with both the grief and the love, the love will become more clear, and more clarifying. In time, it will show us the way to go.

Blessing the Distance

It is a mystery to me
how as the distance
between us grows,
the larger this blessing
becomes,

as if the shape of it
depends on absence,
as if it finds its form
not by what
it can cling to
but by the space
that arcs
between us.

As this blessing
makes its way,
first it will cease
to measure itself
by time.

Then it will release
how attached it has become
to this place
where we have lived,
where we have learned
to know one another
in proximity and
presence.

Next this blessing
will abandon
the patterns
in which it moved,
the habits that helped it
recognize itself,
the familiar pathways
it traced.

Finally this blessing
will touch its fingers
to your brow,
your eyes,
your mouth;
it will hold
your beloved face
in both its hands,

and then
it will let you go;
it will loose you
into your life;
it will leave
each hindering thing

until all that breathes
between us
is blessing
and all that beats
between us
is grace.

—Jan Richardson
from Circle of Grace: A Book of Blessings for the Seasons

P.S. I want to let you know about this online event happening this Saturday with Cranaleith Spiritual Center:

Saturday, May 16, 2026
Bearing the Light in Unbearable Times: A Conversation with Jan Richardson
Online via Zoom, 12-2pm EDT
(In-Person Watch Party available at Cranaleith, Philadelphia)

I am so looking forward to this online event offered by Cranaleith Spiritual Center on May 16! As fractures in our society continue to widen, how do we tend what is broken without losing heart? This conversation will explore how we might become bearers of healing light in a broken world, trusting that even in places of deep rupture, light is already at work, not erasing the scars, but shining through them. We would love for you to join us from wherever you are!

Info & registration: https://cranaleith.secure.retreat.guru/program/bearing-the-light-in-unbearable-times-a-conversation-with-jan-richardson

If you have any questions, please contact Cranaleith Spiritual Center, and they will be glad to help.

_____________________

Using Jan’s artwork
To use the image Ascension II, please visit this page at janrichardsonimages.com.

Using Jan’s words
For worship services and related settings, you are welcome to use this blessing without requesting permission. All that’s needed is to acknowledge the source. Please include this info in a credit line: “© Jan Richardson from Circle of Grace: A Book of Blessings for the Seasons. janrichardson.com.” For other uses, visit Copyright Permissions.

Posted in blessings, Easter, Gospel of Luke, lectionary, sacred time | Leave a Comment »

The Painted Prayerbook

If I Have a Favorite

All Hallows Blessing

Blessing the Table

At the Burning Bush

What We Get to Keep

Blessing for the Place Between

Grateful Blessing

Blessing of Hope

Pentecost: A Blessing in the Fire

Ascension Day/Easter 7: Blessing the Distance

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