Thursday is Thanksgiving Day, an occasion for giving thanks, eating food, watching football, and sharing at the table with friends and family. Here is a prayer that could be used at the dinner table.
A Thanksgiving Prayer: We Choose Gratitude
Adapted from Grateful: The Subversive Power of Giving Thanks by Diana Butler Bass
GOD, there are many days we do not feel grateful.
When we are anxious or angry. When we feel alone. When we do not understand what is happening in the world or with our neighbors. When the news is bleak and confusing. When there are threats, injustice, violence, and war.
We struggle to feel grateful.
But this Thanksgiving, we choose gratitude.
We choose to accept life as a gift from you, and as a gift from the unfolding work of all creation.
We choose to be grateful for the earth from which our food comes; for the water that gives life; and for the air we all breathe.
We choose to thank our ancestors, those who came before us, for their stories and struggles; we receive their wisdom as a continuing gift for today.
We choose to see our families and friends with new eyes, accepting them for who they are.
We are thankful for our homes, whether humble or grand.
We choose to appreciate and care for our neighbors whatever our differences or how much we feel hurt or misunderstood by them.
God, this Thanksgiving, we do not give thanks. We choose it.
We will make this choice of thanks with courage, knowing that it is humbling to say “thank you.”
We choose to open ourselves to your sacred generosity, aware that we live in an unending circle of gratitude.
Here, now, and into the future. Around our family table. Around the table of our nation. Around the table of the earth.
We choose thanks. Amen.