My thoughts and prayers are with you all as we begin a set of weeks of holiday gatherings and experiences in our homes, in nature, at church.  I know some will be deeply moving, enriching and connecting. Some may bring relief and bolster hope.  Some gatherings or moments alone may be extremely lonely, difficult or unsettling.  This is the reality in which we share.  As I write from North Dakota, the DeSota, Thomas and Castaing families are especially on my heart in these days since Dale’s passing.  

What does it mean to be grateful in the REALITY of hard times?  This is the invitation of faith…  A friend recently shared this beautiful passage from African American mystic and theologian Howard Thurman.  I pray it my touch you as well. 

In Christ’s Peace,
Pastor Jacki

Litany of Thanksgiving

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 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 arm,
The strength of my father,
The playmates of my childhood,
The wonderful stories brought to me from the lives of many who talked of the 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 single handshake when I feared the step before me in the 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 mainsprings of my heritage:
The fruits of the 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 could only find fulfillment in the years which they  would never see;
The workers who 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 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 with 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, O God, in humbleness of mind and simplicity of heart.

– From Meditations of the Heart by Howard Thurman