Thanksgiving Words and Table Grace 2024

Among the American poets, Edna St. Vincent Millay was a compassionate and prophetic voice… I recall her words about our need to live through an “Anxious Autumn” with renewed enthusiasm, rather than a nagging sense of despair. She asks us to reach for new depths of courage; allowing us to respond positively to life and its blessings, with intentional caring and with a resilient resolve. As we gather on this Thanksgiving Day, may we open our hearts to one another and may we gather this day remembering the needs of others, holding on to a larger sense of shared hope…

Holy One, of Many Names, that lives in our world as love and dwells within our hearts as compassion; May we, this day, and each hereafter, practice a relentless sense of gratitude and generosity, and courageously hold on to an unselfish concern for equality and to promote justice in our world.

May we reach within ourselves for those neglected parts buried by incessant chatter of media influence and its toxic effluence, and instead, begin to reach out for honesty and truth; let us aspire to nurture one another by our caring, taking the time to clear our minds and listen to our hearts…                                                 Lastly, may we have the preserving strength and the persistent compassion to be fiercely kind.     Amen; So Be it!