Thanksgiving 2011

I returned late yesterday, from the most amazing trip to Istanbul and Ephesus, so filled with spiritual experiences and graces, and I will write about it shortly.

But today, as with many of you, my thoughts dwell on all the things that I am grateful for, ever mindful, as Meister Eckhart once affirmed, that:

"If the only prayer you ever say
is thank you,
it would be enough."

And so, I share with you a prayer by the German theologian, Deitrich Bonhoeffer, who was put to death by the Nazis, and a poem by e.e. cummings:

O Heavenly Father,

I praise and thank you

For the peace of the night.

I praise and thank you for this new day.

I praise and thank you for the goodness

And faithfulness throughout my life.

You have granted me many blessings;

Now let me also accept what is hard from your hand.

You will lay on me no more than I can bear.

You make all things work together for the good of your children.

Deitrich Bonhoeffer

i thank You God for most this amazing
day:for the leaping greenly spirits of trees
and a blue true dream of sky;and for everything
which is natural which is infinite which is yes

(i who have died am alive again today,
and this is the sun's birthday;this is the birth
day of life and love and wings:and of the gay
great happening illimitably earth)

how should tasting touching hearing seeing
breathing any-lifted from the no
of all nothing-human merely being
doubt unimaginable You?

(now the ears of my ears awake and
now the eyes of my eyes are opened)

~ e.e. cummings ~

May you be grateful today, for all that is. But, may you remember to express gratitude for everything, every day of your life!