The Wonderment

Thanksgiving 2010

Giving thanks is one of the simplest forms of prayer. Many wisdom teachers tell us that gratitude is the root and well of all spiritual life, a continuous source of nourishment and celebration.

One way many cultures and families mark a celebration and a sacred time is with lighting special candles or lamps. Here is a Thanksgiving candle lighting:

Light of love and abundant blessings you illumine our hearts, our actions, and our world. We sing our thanks and praise for all these joyful gifts we have and share. In this beautiful harvest of gratitude, may we in turn may share these blessings with all the world.

Yet like all celebrations, there is often sadness mixed in with that gratitude. Family centered holidays remind those of us with families fractured by estrangement, violence, illness, deployment, and death about the blessings we once knew but feel so very far from right now. This is a Thanksgiving prayer to make room for that reality:

We give thanks for this time of blessing.

We remember the blessings of those who touched our lives with love, but have passed through the veil… (offer names or pause in silence)

We hold those who are so far away from us in love and with cherished hopes for safe returns… (name names & circumstances or pause in silence)

We remember those who do not have enough this day, those who are deep in addiction and other illnesses, and those who are running in fear for their safety today… (name names or pause in silence)

We give thanks for those we are here, for the many blessings we share… (name them or pause in silence)

We give thanks and from our thankfulness, may we love more boldly than we can imagine, give more generously than we would dare, and do all we can from our place of blessing to care for each other and this world. Amen.

Each and every day is a day for giving thanks. Thank you for being who you are and for blessing this life each and every day!

 

A Good Word

Once upon a time was graced in knowing a young man who always greeted me with a smile, asking “What’s the good word today?” No matter what else was going on with my life, no matter where in the clouds my thinking was or how downtrodden my heart, his question summoned me to an attentive blessing. Sometimes the word was “joy” and sometimes it was “peace” and sometimes it was “endurance”, but often the word I had to offer was “love”. I would ask him the same question as I returned the good word, and our conversation would be off and running if we had the time, and, if not, we both were blessed and offering what we could in blessing.

 

When our relations with one another become hollow form, it can be very helpful to take on a new form of greeting, one that causes both parties to pause, recognize the wonderful being before them, and offer something good.

 

It is easy to be obsessed with sorrow, resentment, and fear. It is easy to be caught up in a to-do list. It is easy to stick with what is polite and expected and pass by the real person who is before us and so also abnegate our own humanity in favor of our current obsession. I deeply appreciate the young man who recalled the people he met to the beautiful possibilities in asking “What’s the good word today?”

 

What’s your good word today?

How might need a good word you meet today?

What good words will you encounter?

Agent of Hope

There is a big difference between having agency to affect the world and being powerful by worldly standards. The worldly standard of power might involve a lot of physical and social resources. But worldly power is not entirely in one person’s control to acquire without a leg up into it; it does not reflect a divine blessing upon one part of humanity over another. But we all have agency, regardless of how little worldly power we might have, agency that flows through our particular gifts and talents.

 

When I visit a locked-down psychiatric unit, filled with people who have a day regimented by others, I can still witness agency in how one person treats another with consideration and kindness.

 

We have agency no matter where we find ourselves and how controlled our lives are by external forces.

 

I meet with a person who has been underemployed or unemployed for years and who feels that the world so often chooses not to see this one’s humanity and potential. Yet, while we are talking, a toy is folded out of a scrap of paper and, on our way out of the public building, passed to a sad looking parent sitting with a tearful child.   

 

We have agency no matter what our social markers of success, and we can make differences that matter.

 

The feeling of powerlessness is a scary feeling for many of us, often a synonym for feeling trapped. We all have limitations. In our lives, we will all face disappointment, sorrow, regret, and loss. The world may seem to pass us by. But we still are endowed, just by breath and caring heart, with the ability to shift the world a bit more towards mercy, justice, beauty, love, and hope.

 

I’m not working in the way I might wish or as much as I would like. I live with chronic illness that is not entirely or easily controllable. But that does not mean I cannot live today with gratitude for all I can do, aware of the opportunities that will arise as I wait for other changes. There is much I may be powerless to affect, but so it has ever been for we limited finite beings.  There is still much I can do, today. The question is for each of us, shall we?

 

We aren't living an impossible mission for hope. Just by being born you have been commissioned as an agent for compassion in the world. Will you be one today?