Giving and Sharing Thanks

(Dear friends: I started this yesterday, but only could complete it now. In case you didn't have a chance to give an invitation earlier, left overs over the weekend is good, too!)

In case you may have not had a chance to do this last Sunday.... would you consider calling up one of the elderly people in your parish and inviting them for Thanksgiving.... or inviting over a new single, couple or family to your parish (particularly new to the area) and give them a seat at your festival board? You don't even have to KNOW them........ invite them. If they are busy, OK. If not, you have made someone's day.

How about a long-time parishoner who is newly in a nursing facility. If it is possible, call them up and make arrangements for them to come out and be part of a more intimate feast. How about the neighbor down the hallway? A co worker? Someone from out of town (or out of the country)? This is a day to share.

Next, make a point to offer a blessing on the food to be eaten. A General Thanksgiving is on p 836 of the BCP, an alternative is a take on the collect for Thanksgiving Day, on p.246 of the BCP.

Another alternative is the one I offer below: not too short, not too long.

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Accept, Dear God our thanks for all that you do, have and will do for us. For the beauty and diversity of our world; For those things we recognize easily and those things we have taken for granted.

Bless all the hands and the work that has brought this bounty to life, to harvest and eventually to our table. We give thanks for the seafarers, farmers, ranchers, farm hands, mechanics, factory and day laborers, truckers, stockers and grocers forgotten in the long food chain that we have grown to rely on. Make certain that we protect them by insisting they earn a fair wage and decent living conditions.

Fill us with gratitude for those whose lives have touched us - for the families that we have been given and the families we have created, for our friends and loved ones. We remember those no longer with us and look forward to those who will enter our lives. Remind us of the lonely, homeless and disabled and give us the inspiration to reach out to them.

Finally, bless this food to our use and us to your service. Keep us mindful and attentive to both the gifts and the needs of others - for the sake of Jesus who loves us each as we are. Amen.

Thanksgiving thoughts

Ms. Debbie S.Loeb from Hodgepodge has done it again and sent something on to us- I share them with you all:


Grace isn't a little prayer you chant before receiving a meal. It's a way to live.~Jackie Windspear

Thanksgiving Day comes, by statute, once a year; to the honest man it comes as frequently as the heart of gratitude will allow. ~Edward Sandford Martin

Thanksgiving Day is a jewel, to set in the hearts of honest men; but be careful that you do not take the day, and leave out the gratitude. ~E.P. Powell


Not what we say about our blessings, but how we use them, is the true measure of our thanksgiving. --WT Purkiser

"Clyde Murdock tells of a Christian farmer who was spending a day in a large city. Entering the restaurant for his noon meal, he found a table near a group of young men. When his meal was served, he quietly, with bowed head, gave thanks for the food before him. The young men, observing this, thought they would ridicule and embarrass the old gentleman. One called out in a loud voice: 'Hey farmer, does everyone do that where you live?' The old man looked at the callow youth and calmly said: 'No, son, the pigs don't.'" (Prairie Overcomer, October 1987, p. 36)