Readings for Thanksgiving
May the blessing of light
be on you, light without and light within.
May the blessed sunlight
shine upon you and warm your heart till it glows
like a great peat fire, so that the stranger may
come and warm himself at it, as well as the friend.
And may the light shine out of the eyes of you,
like a candle set in the windows of a house,
bidding the wanderer to come in out of the storm.
And may the blessing of the rain
be on you – the soft sweet rain.
May it fall upon your spirit so that all the little flowers may
spring up, and shed their sweetness on the air.
And may the blessing of the great rains be on you,
that they beat upon your spirit and wash it fair and clean,
and leave there many a shining pool where the blue
of heaven shines, and sometimes a star.
And may the blessing of the earth
be on you – the great round earth;
may you ever have a kindly greeting
for people you pass as you are going along the roads.
And now may the Lord
bless you, and bless you kindly.
-Celtic blessing
See the world as your self.
Have faith in the way things are.
Love the world as your self;
Then you can care for all things.
-Lao-Tzu
The lands around my dwelling
are more beautiful
from the day
when it is given me to see
faces I have never seen before.
All is more beautiful,
All is more beautiful,
and life is thankfulness.
These guests of mine make
my house grand.
- Intuit blessing
The blowing wind,
the mild, moist air,
the exquisite greening
of trees and grasses -
In their beginning,
in their ending,
they give God their praise.
– Hildegard of Bingen
There is no better way to show one’s gratefulness to the
Divine than to be quietly happy.
- Mother Theresa
O world, I cannot hold thee close enough!
Thy winds, thy wide grey skies!
Thy mists that roll and rise!
Thy woods, this autumn day, that ache and sag
And all but cry with colour! That gaunt crag
To crush! To life the lean of that black bluff!
World, WORLD, I cannot get you close enough!
Long have I known a glory in it all,
But never knew I this;
here such a passion is
As stretcheth me apart. Lord I do fear
Thou’st made the world too beautiful this year.
My soul is all but out of me, – let fall
No burning leaf; prithee, let no bird call.
-Edna St. Vincent Millay
The Summer Day
Who made the world?
Who made the swan, and the black bear?
Who made the grasshopper?
This grasshopper, I mean -
the one who has flung herself out of the grass,
the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,
who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down -
who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.
Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.
Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.
I don’t know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn’t everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?
-Mary Oliver