| At my daughter Kate’s dinner table, they have the practice of saying grace by asking, “What are you grateful for today?” My grandson, Oliver, has come to love this practice and insists on it now at our Sunday family meals. This week he was thankful for his grandmother, Nana Alice, and great grandmother, Nana Joan. Maybe I’ll make the list next week. Gratitude is a life giving, healing practice. This week we have the opportunity to give thanks with family and friends as we gather for Thanksgiving meals. I pray that you will experience the grace of God and an openness of heart and know the loving presence of God through our shared rituals (and meals) of thanksgiving. I offer you this prayer of Thanksgiving from our Prayer Book, page 836: Accept, O Lord, our thanks and praise for all that you have done for us. We thank you for the splendor of the whole creation, for the beauty of this world, for the wonder of life, and for the mystery of love. We thank you for the blessing of family and friends, and for the loving care which surrounds us on every side. We thank you for setting us at tasks which demand our best efforts, and for leading us to accomplishments which satisfy and delight us. We thank you also for those disappointments and failures that lead us to acknowledge our dependence on you alone. Above all, we thank you for your Son Jesus Christ; for the truth of his Word and the example of his life; for his steadfast obedience, by which he overcame temptation; for his dying, through which he overcame death; and for his rising to life again, in which we are raised to the life of your kingdom. Grant us the gift of your Spirit, that we may know him and make him known; and through him, at all times and in all places, may give thanks to you in all things. Amen. Yours in Christ, David+ |
