Friday, November 23, 2012

Prayer on a Day of Rest


Today is my day of rest and thanksgiving.
Lord I am thankful that you have given me life so abundantly full of good things and wonderful, loving people.
I am thankful that I am able to take a day of rest and meditation with you, and I am thankful for the epic music maelstrom which I will enjoy tonight.
I am thankful for the coffee I will now go get at a great local (non-franchised) coffee shop, whose owner has shared with me the full history of his establishment's coffee process - from fair trade organic farm to my hot little hand :)
Thankful for the park in which I will walk with said coffee in a thanksgiving-offering-up-and-gratitudinal mannar :)
I am thankful for pools to swim in and hot tubs to get sore muscle knots out.
I am thankful for my magic bullet breakfast and the wonderful little mother who insisted on getting me a magic bullet in the summer of 2011, and whose generous care makes my music maelstrom possible tonight.
I am thankful for the medical consult I had with my sister and please help get her car back on the road soon God, so she can resume being the little housecall making doctor whom her patients so love.
I am thankful for warm, safe shelter, a bed smothered in blankets and comforters, hot food, and on-demand running hot and cold water.
I am thankful for the snow that will soon come and make this place new over and over again, and for the leaves flying around, collecting in corners, history pages of the season passed.
I am thankful for the best placement ever, with kind loving pastors who encourage, uplift and smile, and with loving members who bring pickles and deviled eggs and three kinds of mustard to go with ham and scalloped potatoes to students on a cold, stressful, end of term night - love so caringly expressed in food so thoughtfully prepared.
I am thankful to live in a city which provides out of the cold sites, and recognizes, at least at the grassroots levels, the realities of mental health issues and addictions do not mean people should be left to die. Let these grassroots grow God, to become strong trees that uphold the weak and the vulnerable in our region.
I am thankful for the House of Friendship.
I am thankful for having choices and encountering challenges which help me to feel the Holy Spirit close at hand.
I am thankful for my colleagues from school and even for Wilson! I am thankful for my teachers who are patient with my enthusiasm and my frustration.
I am thankful for pomegranates, bright red inside, and chocolate, and coffee, and love and thai food.
I am thankful for mountains and oceans and rivers and trees and rocks and sweat lodges and elders and small children and hope in all things.
I am thankful that I have so many things to be thankful for :) and that I know I will spend the rest of today thinking about some of those thanksgivingable things.
Thanks be to you God, for your love and grace and womb-like mercy in Christ have made me who I am and brought me into this day.
Amen.
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