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Posts from the ‘Thanksgiving’ Category

Nov 27

Gratitude, Thankfulness, Praise

“Pied Beauty
Glory be to God for dappled things–
For skies of couple-colour as a brinded cow;
For rose-moles all in stipple upon trout that swim;
Fresh-firecoal chestnut-falls; finches’ wings;
Landscape plotted and pieced–fold, fallow, and plough;
And all trades, their gear and tackle and trim.
All things counter, original, spare, strange;
Whatever is fickle, freckled (who knows how?)
With swift, slow; sweet, sour; adazzle, dim;
He fathers-forth whose beauty is past change:
Praise Him.”
― Gerard Manley Hopkins, The Poems of Gerard Manley Hopkins

“Thankfulness finds its full measure in generosity of presence, both through participation and witness. We sit at the table as part of every other person’s world while making our own world without will or effort, this is what is extraordinary and gifted, this is the essence of gratefulness, seeing to the heart of privilege. Thanksgiving happens when our sense of presence meets all other presences. Being unappreciative might mean we are simply not paying attention.” – David Whyte

Soft heart
Listening ear
Joyful stance
Warm embrace
Enter this day anew, fresh eyes
Free from expectations, demands, assumptions
Fully present, rapt attention, kindness, hospitality, light, laughter
Awake to beauty all around and within
Love well
Gratitude, Thankfulness, Praise
Happy Thanksgiving

“GRATITUDE is not a passive response to something we have been given, gratitude arises from paying attention, from being awake in the presence of everything that lives within and without and beside us. Gratitude is not necessarily something that is shown after the event, it is the deep, a-priori state of attention that shows we understand and are equal to the gifted nature of life.” – David Whyte

Nov 24

A Way, Not a Day

“We would worry less if we praised more. Thanksgiving is the enemy of discontent and dissatisfaction.”― Harry A. Ironside

“I am grateful for what I am and have. My thanksgiving is perpetual. It is surprising how contented one can be with nothing definite – only a sense of existence. Well, anything for variety. I am ready to try this for the next ten thousand years, and exhaust it. How sweet to think of! my extremities well charred, and my intellectual part too, so that there is no danger of worm or rot for a long while. My breath is sweet to me. O how I laugh when I think of my vague indefinite riches. No run on my bank can drain it, for my wealth is not possession but enjoyment.”― Henry David Thoreau

Not a day
A long weekend
The start of holiday flurry and hurry
An approach
Foundation
Perspective
Attitude
Commitment
Deliberate practice
Daily habit
Noticing and simple joys
Toys and fresh dug holes
May thanksgiving be a way, not a day.

“Eucharisteo—thanksgiving—always precedes the miracle.”― Ann Voskamp, One Thousand Gifts


“A has one aim in life… to bestow his heart.”― J. R. Ackerley

Nov 28

Blessings Common in Our Sight

“Love is the story and the prayer that matters the most.”― Brian Doyle, The Wet Engine: Exploring Mad Wild Miracle of Heart

Thanksgiving by Ella Wheeler Wilcox

“We walk on starry fields of white
And do not see the daisies;
For blessings common in our sight
We rarely offer praises.
We sigh for some supreme delight
To crown our lives with splendor,
And quite ignore our daily store
Of pleasures sweet and tender.

Our cares are bold and push their way
Upon our thought and feeling.
They hand about us all the day,
Our time from pleasure stealing.
So unobtrusive many a joy
We pass by and forget it,
But worry strives to own our lives,
And conquers if we let it.

There’s not a day in all the year
But holds some hidden pleasure,
And looking back, joys oft appear
To brim the past’s wide measure.
But blessings are like friends, I hold,
Who love and labor near us.
We ought to raise our notes of praise
While living hearts can hear us.

Full many a blessing wears the guise
Of worry or of trouble;
Far-seeing is the soul, and wise,
Who knows the mask is double.
But he who has the faith and strength
To thank his God for sorrow
Has found a joy without alloy
To gladden every morrow.

We ought to make the moments notes
Of happy, glad Thanksgiving;
The hours and days a silent phrase
Of music we are living.
And so the theme should swell and grow
As weeks and months pass o’er us,
And rise sublime at this good time,
A grand Thanksgiving chorus.”

Happy Thanksgiving.
This day.
And each day.
To noticing, savoring, kindness, joy, love.

Nov 19

Eucharisteo

“Eucharisteo—thanksgiving—always precedes the miracle.”― Ann Voskamp, One Thousand Gifts: A Dare to Live Fully Right Where You Are

“I am grateful for what I am and have. My thanksgiving is perpetual. It is surprising how contented one can be with nothing definite – only a sense of existence. Well, anything for variety. I am ready to try this for the next ten thousand years, and exhaust it. How sweet to think of! my extremities well charred, and my intellectual part too, so that there is no danger of worm or rot for a long while. My breath is sweet to me. O how I laugh when I think of my vague indefinite riches. No run on my bank can drain it, for my wealth is not possession but enjoyment.”― Henry David Thoreau

May thanksgiving be perennial rather than annual.
Rooted deeply, ever-present.
A perpetual harvest.
A framework, attitude, lens to living every day, not a mere day.
Recognizing what is already present.
Abundance over scarcity.
Multiplication over subtraction.
Praise over comparison.
Gratitude. Contentment. Peace.
May these be your daily companions.

“Do not indulge in dreams of having what you have not, but reckon up the chief of the blessings you do possess, and then thankfully remember how you would crave for them if they were not yours.”― Marcus Aurelius, Meditations