WONDERS GREAT AND SMALL – A Thanksgiving Blessing

As we celebrate Thanksgiving in the U.S. I'll have to send my best wishes to all of you long distance. I'm in Mexico, where they refer to it as el día de acción de gracias.

Here's a Thanksgiving blessing I'd like to share with you. I happen to pray to God, but if your reverence for the incredible is directed to a force of a different name, feel free to plug it in as you like.

 Oh God, you appear to all of us in different ways. Ways so vast and powerful that we cannot grasp them, so minute that we fail to notice them. Lord, hear our thoughts and prayers of thanksgiving and help each of us be more fully aware of your blessings large and small:

Thank you for the vast expanse, the limitless wonder, of your creation,

And for the cold, wet, honeycomb pattern of the skin on a dog’s nose.

Thank you for Nature’s great ebbs and flows—her awesome power;
her transcendent beauty; her inexorable rhythms,

And for our lover’s heartbeat.

Thank you for the fascinating family of man—in all its colors, shades and textures—and the values and aspirations we share.

Thank you too for our family—those sitting at this table and those present in our hearts.

Thank you for the good, the pure, the true that resides at the core
of every human being,

And the chance to share a smile and a kind word with a stranger.

Thank you for your infinite bounty—the abundance with which you
nourish us in body, mind and spirit.

And thank you for this glorious meal we’re about to share.

Thank you for your promise of eternity,

And for this moment—this one...precious...moment of life.

Amen