A Thanksgiving Prayer

 With gratitude to one of our contemporary prophets:

Dr. Walter Brueggemann graciously offered this prayer to us that he wrote and will be sharing around his table this Thanksgiving. May it nourish you and, if you choose, your community as well! Use it in worship, share it on social media, pray it around your table this Thanksgiving!

We are among those who give thanks in every circumstance.

We give thanks easily for the obvious blessings of our lives:

We give thanks for family, and for good friends such as these who bring wellbeing to our lives.

We give thanks for abundant food, like the bounty of this table.

We give thanks for the warmth and comfort and safety of our homes.

But we also give thanks in harder, more ambiguous circumstances:

We give thanks for every breath of life, while fragility or old age crowds in on us.

We give thanks for an economy in which we flourish, not unmindful of the multitude left behind.

We give thanks for the body politic, while we track the force of violence, fear, and hate.

W give thanks for the beauty of the earth, even while we collude in its toxicity.

We give thanks for the church, while our familiar forms and habits fade away.

We give thanks everywhere, all the time.

Receive our thanks. Give it back to us, we ask,

as courage, energy, and resolve,

that we may love more fully the things you love,

faithfulness, justice, and mercy.  Amen.

Written for Thanksgiving, November 24, 2022