A Note of Thanks

Dear Friends,

What do we need to live, grow, thrive, and survive? Gratitude. You may not have said gratitude, but it’s nonetheless true.             

Gratitude is the muscle of the heart. As gratitude pumps in us, vision and hope are released into the world. 

Today, let’s acknowledge aspects of life that we previously might not believe are subjects for our personal gratitude. And let us say to our generous, ever-mindful God...

 

Thank you for giving us people who help us understand

what this rollercoaster ride called life is all about.

 

Thank you for Eucharist, weekly nourishment through Word and Sacrament,

 and our faith community which embodies Christ.

 

Thank you for the universe out there - beloved of God -     even as earth is.

 

Thank you for writers and songwriters who open us to inspiration.

 

Thank you for newcomers to our land who

take the lowest jobs available and do them with care.

 

Thank you for all who have come and keep coming to the aid of the Ukrainian people

 in their determination to survive foreign aggression.

 

Thank you for the good done, the justice insured, all the compassion offered

 and the violence rejected across the world.

 

Thank you, God for boats that carry people away from danger and toward ports of safety

 

Thank you for holding us close as we try to keep the vows we have made.

 Thank you for the grace of growing older and growing old.

 Thank you for nature with its colors, textures and hues, its brilliance and starkness.

 

Thank you that I have come to this day without being overwhelmed

by the accidents, bad choices, unethical situations I have been in.

 

Thank you for prompting me to absorb into my life the insightful words of others

 that have touched my soul.

 

Thank you for healers, peacemakers, reconcilers, and builders of a culture of life.

 

Thank you for people who did us a service decades ago

and we still live off that gesture of generosity.

 

Thank you for the manna You sent to nourish me

as I struggled through my own personal desert.

 

Throughout this Thanksgiving Day, 2022, in between the turkey and the conversations, the walks, and the games, may we find ourselves thanking God for a whole host of realities the thought of which might, at other times, escape us.

I hope so, for to do so is to enrich the meaning of Thanksgiving Day even more.

~Sister Joan Sobala