Last Sunday, Dean Hill asked me to read this during the sermon. It's a really awesome message of thanksgiving and I thought I'd repost it here, since anything I say on this particular day would pretty much pale in comparison.
+++++++++
Today, I make my Sacrament of
Thanksgiving.
I begin with the simple things of my
days:
Fresh air to breathe,
Cool water to drink,
The taste of food,
The protection of houses and clothes,
The comforts of home.
For all these I make an act of
Thanksgiving this day!
I bring to mind all the warmth of
humankind that I have known:
My mother’s arms,
The strength of my father
The playmates of my childhood,
The wonderful stories brought to me from
the lives
Of many who talked of days gone by when
fairies
And giants and all kinds of magic held
sway;
The tears I have shed, the tears I have
seen;
The excitement of laughter and the
twinkle in the
Eye with its reminder that life is good.
For all these I make an act of
Thanksgiving this day
I finger one by one the messages of hope
that awaited me at the crossroads:
The smile of approval from those who
held in their hands the reins of my security;
The tightening of the grip in a simple
handshake when I
Feared the step before me in darkness;
The whisper in my heart when the
temptation was fiercest
And the claims of appetite were not to
be denied;
The crucial word said, the simple
sentence from an open
Page when my decision hung in the
balance.
For all these I make an act of
Thanksgiving this day.
I pass before me the main springs of my
heritage:
The fruits of labors of countless
generations who lived before me,
Without whom my own life would have no
meaning;
The seers who saw visions and dreamed
dreams;
The prophets who sensed a truth greater
than the mind could grasp
And whose words would only find
fulfillment
In the years which they would never see;
The workers whose sweat has watered the
trees,
The leaves of which are for the healing
of the nations;
The pilgrims who set their sails for
lands beyond all horizons,
Whose courage made paths into new worlds
and far off places;
The saviors whose blood was shed with a
recklessness that only a dream
Could inspire and God could command.
For all this I make an act of
Thanksgiving this day.
I linger over the meaning of my own life
and the commitment
To which I give the loyalty of my heart
and mind:
The little purposes in which I have
shared my loves,
My desires, my gifts;
The restlessness which bottoms all I do
with its stark insistence
That I have never done my best, I have
never dared
To reach for the highest;
The big hope that never quite deserts
me, that I and my kind
Will study war no more, that love and
tenderness and all the
inner graces of Almighty affection will
cover the life of the
children of God as the waters cover the
sea.
All these and more than mind can think
and heart can feel,
I make as my sacrament of Thanksgiving
to Thee,
Our Father, in humbleness of mind and
simplicity of heart.
