May we, together with all beings, enjoy the pure taste of kind mind, joyful mind, big mind.

Sharon

I think there are misunderstandings about grace and what causes it to flow. Saying grace does not cause Grace to flow, as I understand it. However, being grateful is our obligation and our joy as human beings. Saying grace before meals can transform it into that which is truly nourishing.

But if we are considering ourselves as humans who love to give thanks for what He gives, then it seems to me that we should also be humans who adjust themselves to live as He would have us live. He has given us only one freedom – and that is the freedom to do what is right. Everything else we do is license and leads to bondage.

So human beings who know enough, who feel enough, to say grace before a meal should also become human beings who live according to the original design. We can be grateful that the food we are eating is keeping us alive long enough to correct our foolish tendencies which include destroying the earth in the pursuit of pleasure and power and feeding the bodies He gave us with substances that are clearly not really food.

Any notions of the flow of His grace are not our responsibility. What is our responsibility is to go beyond saying grace occasionally or even three times a day and ACT as if we are grateful. Deep feelings of gratitude for His creation cannot include consciously mishandling, perverting or otherwise destroying what He set in motion. Our love and gratitude are the motivation that keep us improving ourselves and lightening our impact on His world. Our love and gratitude are the motivation for changing ourselves into an adoring people who live naturally, as He would have us live. Otherwise, saying grace is nothing more than words and empty ritual.

May we all strive to adjust ourselves to live according to His design.

Leslie

It isn’t commercialized (at least not too much, yet) and it is just simple and easy.

At least in our house anyway.

In our family we have both Christians and Jewish relatives who share a table at every holiday, and we have shared December holidays as well…and surprisingly, it is not complicated. I love it. My children are learning a multitude of traditions and it is serving them well.

As for me and my house, we will thank God today for what we have, even if it might be meager this year.

Grace means a gift poured forth unasked and undeserved. I believe God’s grace pours out upon, rises up from within everything, everyone, stone and bird and human. Life and being-ness – all is an unasked-for gift.

I give thanks for God’s grace: for food and water and birds and friends and everything that comes (and goes). It falleth upon me like rain. I do not feel that I must create something worthy of appreciation just to merit that grace. I am simply very very grateful.

Thank God I am moved to create some thing or other each day – a little order, or a meal, or the recognition of love where it was forgotten or in hiding, or forgiveness, or yes maybe “something worthy of appreciation.” But I don’t have to do this to merit grace. Grace happens – to me and to you and to the birds and the lilies of the field.

I have forgotten now which mystic said that the only prayer anyone really needs is “thank you.”

Thank you, all of you, and thank Sharon especially for provoking us to think and also to contemplate grace, gratitude, and the salvation of what really matters.

Every time we purchase or barter for something, we show honor and respect to the person we deal with. When we deal repeatedly with a person, our choice about whom to deal with conveys a deeper degree of thanks and respect.

When we choose to raise our food, or buy locally, our choice is essentially philosophical. Repeating the choice, returning to the same sources, shows gratitude, shows respect. And as we consciously act to grow and nurture community resources, we contribute to our community.

Grace is undeserved love, I am told. We give thanks, not to ask for grace, or because we believe grace will follow. We give thanks at a meal that the civic and social and economic choices we have made have been blessed with fruits, of whatever sort.

The choices we make to encourage local providers is essentially secular. The grace and blessings that our attentions bestow on our neighbors, or that we experience in our own lives, are secular. We do not stand in God’s stead. But the blessings our neighbors receive from dealing with us are as much grace from God as just rewards of their economic choices and efforts.

I think saying grace at table is an honest and pious act. And the way we deal with our neighbors and merchants and family should every day simplify their rejoicing in the blessings in their lives.

Blessed be!