As Close As Our Breath

November 28, 2013

Thanksgiving Prayer

We come to this table today, 

humble and thankful and glad.

We thank Thee first for the great miracle of life, 

for the exaltation of being human, for the capacity to love.

We thank Thee for joys both great and simple-

For wonder, dreams and hope;

For the newness of each day;

For laughter and song and a merry heart;

For compassion waiting within to be kindled;

For the forbearance of friends and the smile of a stranger;

For the arching of the earth and trees and heavens and the fruit of all three;

For the wisdom of the old;

For the courage of the young;

For the promise of the child;

For the strength that comes when needed;

For this family united here today.

Of those to whom much is given, much is required.  

May we and our children remember this.

Amen.

This prayer came to me from my mother many years ago. I read it aloud every year, always choking up at the end. There is something about the wisdom of the old, the promise of the child, the strength that comes when needed. Something about offering up thanks and remembering that we are all in this together. A prayer of thanks can be spoken, whispered, chanted, danced, written on the back of your grocery list every day of the year. To embrace every day with thanks-giving, even with rice cookers flying, or cancer, or loved ones no longer with us, yet are as close as our breath, this is a worthy path to walk.

love,

b xo