Grace Upon Grace

When family and friends gather in our home for a meal, we hold hands and say grace. My earliest memories include my Daddy’s quickly murmured prayer of thanks. My grandfather could hardly be understood the words ran together so fast. I cannot remember the exact words used, but I remember their bowed heads and their humility, and their gratitude for simple food. I do remember the words were the same every time, spoken with a cadence I did not hear in their voices at other times. Through all the years of my own marriage and family, in many different places and situations, that early example and teaching prompted gratitude and recognition of God’s presence at our table. I am grateful for those early influences. When I have cooked a meal for two or twenty, I love that moment when the work stops, hands reach out, blessing is asked on people and the food we share. It feels right to express our connections to God and each other in this way.
G.K.Chesterton reminds me that all the things on my list for today may be marked for significance in the same way.

"You say grace before meals. All right. But I say grace before the concert and the opera, and grace before the play and pantomime, and grace before I open a book, and grace before sketching, painting, swimming, fencing, boxing, walking, playing, dancing and grace before I dip the pen in the ink."
- G. K. Chesterton

So, thank you,God... for these plants and the earth in which I place them. Thank you for the book I read and the person who wrote it. Bless the person who will use these towels I am folding. Bless these words as I write them. For these and all your bounty, I give thanks. Be present at our table, Lord. Be here and everywhere adored.