Giving Thanks

November 22, 2012
"I love being in America for Thanksgiving. Imagine a whole country setting aside a day just to be grateful." an Irish retreatant at Nada Hermitage

To begin today, and everyday:

i thank You God for this most amazing
day: for the leaping greenly spirits of trees
and a blue true dream of sky; and for everything
which is natural which is infinite which is yes

(i who have died am alive again today,
and this is the sun's birthday; this is the birth
day of life and of love and wings: and of the gay
great happening illimitably earth)

how should tasting touching hearing seeing
breathing any--lifted from the no
of all nothing--human merely being
doubt unimaginable You?

(now the ears of my ears awake and
now the eyes of my eyes are opened)
~e.e. cummings

And after the Thanksgiving feast:

We end this meal with grace
For the joy and nourishment of food,
The slowed time away from the world
To come into presence with each other
And sense the subtle lives behind our faces,
The different colours of our voices,
The edges of hungers we keep private,
The circle of love that unites us.
We pray the wise spirit who keeps us
To change the structures that make others hunger
And that after such grace we might now go forth
And impart dignity wherever we partake.
~ John O'Donohue, Benedictus 

In short:

If the only prayer you ever say is thanks, that will be enough.
~ Meister Eckhart 

Happy Thanksgiving!