Tomorrow

These thanksgiving prayers might be useful around your table.
You could use or adapt one before each course of your Thanksgiving meal …
1.
Our Creator, gracious and good …
We thank you for the good gifts of space and time,
Necessary for our stories in all their mass and
Energy to unfold and fold, tangle and untangle,
Rise and fall and begin
And end and begin again.
For your gracious hospitality we thank You.
If we, the other, were not given
This where and this when in which to live, to move, to
Be, then
Where and when would we?
Our being
Here and
Now,
And appreciating it,
Evoke from us this sincere and joyful
Thanks
to You,
Our kind host.
2.
We, your earth-bound creatures,
Made of earth organized in cells,
Thank you for soil.
We, descendants of star-dust,
Thank you for all suns.
We, growers and eaters,
Thank you for summer light and all things green.
We, graced with ears, thank you for
House wrens and thunder and surf
And the whisper and hush of rain.
We, blessed with eyes, rejoice in sky, cloud, redwood,
Tomato, and horse, dragonfly, tortoise,
And all eyes looking back.
We, breathers, thank you for the rim of air
That fills us now, again, and again.
We thank you for our neighbors, human,
Animal, vegetable, mineral,
Wonderful.
To their voices – roars, splashes, hums, drums,
Laughs, cries, calls, and songs –
We add our own, saying, “Thanks!”
3.
God of my grandparents, I thank you for them.
God of my parents, I thank you for them.
God of my children, I thank you for them.
God of my grandchildren, I thank you for them.
God of my siblings and cousins, my aunts and uncles,
I thank you for them all.
God of my friends, I thank you for them.
God of strangers, I thank you for them.
God of farmers and harvesters, drivers and grocers,
Cooks and dishwashers, builders and makers,
And all to whom I am connected,
I thank you for them all.
God of my enemies, I thank you for them.
God who was, I thank you for the departed.
God who is, I thank you for my companions.
God who is to come, I thank you for my descendants
And all their friends and neighbors.
My God, for the joy of having a place in this expanding family,
I thank you for the chance to be
Me. Thank
You!
4.
God, as Christians, we thank you for what we know of you
Through Christ and his companions.
And we thank you as well for what Jews know of you as Jews,
And for what Muslims know of you as Muslims,
And for what Hindus, Buddhists, and all other peoples know of you too.
And we thank you as well for what atheists and agnostics know of you,
Perhaps without knowing how much they know,
For this is true of all of us.
Hopeful and curious, we thank you as well
For all we do not know of you
Yet,
And for all we will never fully know.
For that too is a gift waiting forever
To be opened: the holy, humbling mystery
Of luminous unknowing.
5.
God, gathered here with these family members,
We thank you for all those whose love makes you believable.
(Let us name them.)
God, aware of those who are far away,
We thank you for those whose presence we miss.
(Let us name them.)
God, remembering loved ones who have lived and died,
We thank you for each memory of them.
(Let us name them.)
God, mindful of the youngest and the oldest among us,
We thank you for each one.
(Let us name them.)
God, gathered around this table,
We thank you for our favorite foods.
(Let us name them.)
God, thinking back over this past year,
We thank you for things we have struggled, survived,
Learned, and enjoyed.
(Let us name them.)
For things that make us smile and laugh …
For things that help us grow and learn …
For things that we would miss if they were taken away …
(Let us name them.)
God, looking ahead to an unknown future,
We thank you for blessings that will give us strength.
(Let us name them.)
God, in silence, we are aware that
There are gifts too great even to be named.
(Let us be thankful.)
6.
We thank you, God, for this holiday,
We have rested, and we think of all those whose lives
Are hard and who enjoy little rest.
We have eaten the fruit of our labors, and we think of those
Who have neither work nor money.
We have feasted, and we think of all whose stomachs
Are hungry and have too little.
We have felt safe and at home, and we think of those
Who live in danger and turmoil, in war and fear, and all
Who have been driven from their homes.
We have been together, and we think of all those
Who are lonely and alone.
We have laughed, and we think of all
Whose hearts are heavy.
We have shared stories, and we think of all
Who need a listening ear.
We have counted our blessings, and we ask
That our gratitude can now be translated
Into the desire to be a blessing to others.
Amen.