NaBloPoMo- Day 14: Blessings and Thankful Hearts

Our women's group met for lunch yesterday and the soups were phenomenal. The topic for the afternoon was gratitude and one of our parish associates gave the presentation, which was thoughtful and filled with poetry. I was asked to give the blessing. Here's what I shared: Food for Thought-- “A woman once told me that she did not feel the need to reach out to those around her because she prayed every day. Surely, this was enough. But a prayer is about our relationship to God; a blessing is about our relationship to the spark of God in one another. God may not need our attention as badly as the person next to us on the bus or behind us in line in the supermarket. Everyone in the world matters, and so do their blessings. When we bless others, we offer them refuge from an indifferent world. “ (Rachel Naomi Remen)

We Bless Each Other-- Turn to a person next to you and offer a blessing. “May God bless you today with a grateful heart” might be one. Another option: “May God, who loves you, bless you to love others this day.”

Our Table Blessing-- Gracious God, Source of all Blessings, You have been extravagant in your generosity. You have planted within us the seeds of hope. You have nurtured within us the saplings of faith. You have harvested the fruits of your creation and spread before us the feast of all possibility. Words cannot express our thanks with extravagant generosity. May we offer our lives to you in acts of compassion for one another. May we walk gently upon the earth, ever mindful of our gifts of breath, of love, of life itself. Amen. (Anne G. Cohen) Images from here and here and here.