It is practically sacrosanct and probably bordering on sacrilegious, but every August, I have a lemming-like need to walk the school supply aisles. Stacks of composition books speak to stories yet to be written. Planners promise an organized and efficient year ahead. Boxes of crayons and colored pencils are brimming with possibility. I even appreciate the calculators, protractors, and graph paper that tell me any problem can be solved. Walking the aisles, I see families pouring over lists, arguing over decisions, and digging through piles to find the last green college rule spiral ring notebook. I know that within a few hours of the first school bell, the best-laid plans will start to change. Planners will be filled and overfilled. Crayons will be lost and broken in the process of creating art. Calculators will prove frustrating and protractors dangerous. And those composition books? They will be filled with notes and essays and maybe even a few stories that need to be told. The year will be messy, complicated, and beautiful because people are all those things.
This Sunday, following worship, we will bless backpacks. The weather report indicates we might need to move inside, but regardless, we will gather and ask God to bless each backpack—but more importantly, the child who will carry it. This blessing is a pause in a busy season where we remind children of God’s presence with them. That along with all the tools they have purchased and all the resources they have packed away, we remember that God, too, will be with them at the start of the year. We whisper the promise that God will be there in the messy moments, the complicated ones, the difficult ones, and the beautiful ones alike. In doing so, we remind ourselves that God, too, goes with us, with or without our backpacks.
A Prayer for Backpacks
God bless this backpack and the child who carries it. Bless the grown-ups who help pack it and teachers who help fill it. Bless the bus drivers who transport it, the custodians who clean around it, the librarians who add to it, and the friends who recognize it. Fill this backpack with things unseen: with love and hope, with forgiveness and fortitude, with joy and patience. Be as close to this child as their backpack, resting lightly upon their shoulders and present with them no matter what they may face. Bless, Oh Lord, this backpack and the child who carries it.
