Sneezing and Bless yous

I have been wanting to blog more, and just now went to a blog that has always inspired me.  She said to do it.  Blog.  A lot.  Regularly.  About what is happening in your life.  In your words.  

Then I sneezed. 

Nobody is here but me and the dog, so I sneezed like nobody was here.  No holding back.

Will, my little guy, sneezes big.  And he always sneezes twice.  Always. 

My man sneezes when he looks into a light, and so do my other two boys.

I, on the other hand, sneeze when I breathe in cold air.

When I was a Senior in college I lived in the upstairs of a lady professor's house.  There were three of us that lived up there.  One was a friend that told me about the place, Tami.  The other was a girl I never saw.  Seriously.  I lived there for a full semester.  I know what her car looked like, but I never saw her.  We shared a bathroom and a kitchen but somehow she avoided us all together.  Very strange.

Tami and I started realizing that not only did we have a strange up-stairs house mate, we also had an odd down-stairs house mate - the professor.  She sneezed at night.  Big sneezes.  Now realize, we lived upstairs.  She lived downstairs.  It was an old house with very tall ceilings.  Tami and I would here the sneezes begin, and we would have to stifle our laughter.  In my mind I pictured the roof coming off the house when she sneezed.  WAAAAACCHHHOOOOO!!!!  

Turns out we had to ask the professor something one evening, and we found out the answer to the huge sneezes.  When we signed the rental contract she specified that she wanted her privacy in the evenings and we weren't to disturb her after a certain time.  Accidentally we found out why.  The poor lady was tipsy.  I guess she was drowning her loneliness.  Kinda sad, but we appreciated the break from our studies to have a little chuckle.

In high school one of the cool dudes in school thought it was funny to say "Curse you" if someone sneezed twice and would then say "Bless you" if they sneezed the third time.  It was silly, but it also made me think about this cultural nicety that we pass on to complete strangers on a daily basis really without thinking about why we do it.

Here is wikipedia's explanation of the origin of the "Bless you.":

Several possible origins are commonly given. The practice of blessing a sneeze, dating as far back as at least AD 77, however, is far older than most specific explanations can account for.[1]



One explanation holds that the custom originally began as an actual blessing. Gregory I became Pope in AD 590 as an outbreak of the bubonic plague was reaching Rome. In hopes of fighting off the disease, he ordered unending prayer and parades of chanters through the streets. At the time, sneezing was thought to be an early symptom of the plague. The blessing ("God bless you!") became a common effort to halt the disease.[2]


A variant of the Pope Gregory I story places it with Pope Gregory VII, then tells the common story of "Ring Around the Rosey" being connected to the same plague.[3]

A legend holds that it was believed that the heart stops beating and the phrase "bless you" is meant to ensure the return of life or to encourage your heart to continue beating.[1][2][4]


Another version says that people used to believe that your soul can be thrown from your body when you sneeze,[1] that sneezing otherwise opened your body to invasion by the Devil[2] or evil spirits,[4] or that sneezing was your body's effort to force out an invading evil spirit.[1] Thus, "bless you" or "God bless you" is used as a sort of shield against evil.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bless_you


So, for 1500 or more years, we have been able to bless other people we don't know just because they sneezed.  What a neat opportunity to regularly pray for the strangers around us.  Don't just say, "God bless you."  Mean it.  Pray for their soul, their heart, their life.  And when it's not a stranger, even better.  Pray for their soul, their heart, their life. 

"God bless you."  Meant it.