Blessing Backpacks, Blessing Teachers, Blessing All Workers?

Yesterday my church blessed teachers and staff--our public school teachers head back today, and students head back to class a week from now.  So Sunday, we'll bless the students and their backpacks.

I've written about aspects of this blessing service before, but I recently wrote a post for the Living Lutheran site which weaves various strands together.  Here are some quotes to whet your appetite:

"We also bless teachers, usually on the Sunday before we bless the students, since teachers return to school first. At first, I hesitated to go up with the other teachers. Some of my teacher friends in the church teach seventh grade; I’m sure that my job teaching college level English is easier."

"In terms of what we do in a normal week or month in church, I find being blessed to be a profound experience. When I was a child, we did none of this. I'm glad we do it now."

"It made me wonder why we only bless teachers. Many of us have jobs caring for our fellow citizens. Many of us hold lives in our hands. Perhaps we're workers in the medical field, and we literally hold lives in our hands. Perhaps we work with data, and metaphorically we hold lives in our hands. I’d like to see us move to blessing more workers across a variety of fields."