[Oe List ...] A Thanksgiving meditation

[Hubert Fulkerson]

You might make this s bit more generic for thise of who have become allergic 
to bread.
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Herman Greene" <hfgreene at mindspring.com>
To: "OE Listserv" <OE at wedgeblade.net>
Sent: Wednesday, November 24, 2004 6:19 AM
Subject: [Oe List ...] A Thanksgiving meditation


> In our church we have introduced Creation Season, a Season that begins 
> with
> the Feast Day of St. Francis in October and extends to Advent. I thought
> some of you might enjoy this meditation I wrote on Thanksgiving.
>
> GIVE US THIS DAY OUR DAILY BREAD
>
>
>
> This is the last Sunday of Creation Season for 2004. Our theme for 
> Creation
> Season this year has been food and faith. Let us reflect for a moment on
> those words from the prayer that Jesus taught us, "Give us this day our
> daily bread."
>
>
>
> "Give us this day our daily bread," how simple and, yet, how profound. 
> Jesus
> also teaches us "25 . . . do not worry about your life, what you will eat 
> or
> what you will drink, or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life
> more than food, and the body more than clothing? 26 Look at the birds of 
> the
> air; they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your 
> heavenly
> Father feeds them. (Matthew 25-26).
>
>
>
> God feeds us. Each day we awaken to the sun, which causes the plants to 
> grow
> through the miracle of photosynthesis, a gift of a billion years ago. The
> soil rich with nutrients from millennia of preparation nourishes the 
> crops.
> Rain falls through no effort of our own to water the crops. A rich 
> ecosystem
> of earthworms that turn the soil, insects, and winds that pollinate the
> crops, feeds us.
>
>
>
> Our daily bread is such a gift. Lord, we thank you for the gift of our 
> daily
> bread.
>
>
>
> It is this same bread, which reminds us of Jesus, the bread of life. This 
> is
> my body which is broken for you. Eat this in remembrance of me." You have
> taken the ordinary Lord and enriched it, enchanted it, filled it with
> spirit. It is in the ordinariness of life where we find you. It is in this
> material, embodied world where we find you incarnate. When we partake of
> bread, we partake of the whole world with all the systems of life that
> sustains us and all other creatures and all those who labor to bring us 
> our
> daily bread.
>
>
>
> Jesus has made the meal a special time of fellowship. His last supper is
> memorable, but there were all those times of table talk when he sat down
> with publicans, sinners, and thieves, with children, with women, with his
> close friends and disciples. As the Gospel parable reminds us Jesus has
> invited us to a banquet, and as Psalm 23 says, "Thou preparest a table
> before me."
>
>
>
> And as Peter Farb and George Armelagos have written: "In all societies, 
> both
> simple and complex, eating is the primary way of initiating and 
> maintaining
> human relationships."
>
>
>
> Lord, as we enter this season of Thanksgiving, we simply pray, "Give us 
> this
> day our daily bread."
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