Many years ago, some friends gave us a sweet little hardcover book that lived on our kitchen table for a long time afterward. It was a collection of, as the subtitle said, “Daily Blessings for the Evening Meal from Buddha to the Beatles.” The idea was to help those without traditional prayers take a moment to practice gratitude. My family had traditional prayers, but we found some gems in this collection as well.
In this Thanksgiving week, I thought I’d share three entries with you. Maybe one of them will resonate with you the way it does with me.
from the poet John Greenleaf Whitter, a simple instruction:
No longer forward nor behind I look in hope or fear; But, grateful, take the good I find, The best of now and here.
from the poet Gerard Manley Hopkins, here’s gratitude for the thing we perhaps take most for granted:
Wild air, world-mothering air, Nestling me everywhere, That each eyelash or hair Girdles, goes home betwixt The fleeciest, frailest-flixed Snowflake; that's fairly mixed With riddles, and is rife In every least thing's life; This needful, never spent, And nursing element; My more than meat and drink, My meal at every wink; This air, which, by life's law, My lung must draw and draw Now but to breathe its praise...
And, finally, this from Bahá’u’lláh, the founder of Bahá’í:
A thankful person is thankful under all circumstances. A complaining soul complains even if he lives in paradise.
I also gleaned from this little book that the prayers I was taught as a child to say as grace before dinner, which my father had said and my grandparents before him, and on back who knows how far, originated in the Book of Common Prayer. That collection of Anglican prayers was first published in 1549. Many of the meditations in our kitchen table collection run even deeper back in time. Passing along these words meant to mark the deepest human emotions, from gratitude to grief, anchors us to all of life in a way that circumvents linear time. The words themselves may fail to fully express their intent, but the act of sharing them is the connective tissue that holds us fast.
Here’s wishing blessings on you and yours. I hope you had a restful and happy Thanksgiving.