Thankful Thoughts

As you may know we are not gathering today for Bread for your journey, but I thought it important for me to express my thanks to all of you and put some readings to munch on here.  So as I began my search I am putting my top favorites here and then commenting as we often do on the http://bythewaynashua.blogspot.com/

The Best Thanksgiving Post of the day comes from Episcopal Cafe, Speaking to the Soul.

The second reflection is a poem I found on a Thanksgiving website:

Giving Thanks

Anonymous

For the hay and the corn and the wheat that is reaped,
For the labor well done, and the barns that are heaped,
For the sun and the dew and the sweet honeycomb,
For the rose and the song and the harvest brought home --
Thanksgiving! Thanksgiving!

For the trade and the skill and the wealth in our land,
For the cunning and strength of the workingman's hand,
For the good that our artists and poets have taught,
For the friendship that hope and affection have brought --
Thanksgiving! Thanksgiving!

For the homes that with purest affection are blest,
For the season of plenty and well-deserved rest,
For our country extending from sea unto sea;
The land that is known as the 'Land of the Free' --
Thanksgiving! Thanksgiving!

The third reflection is from 1Thessalonians3:9-13 CEV

Prayer:
Dear God we thank you this day for all you have created. From our lives, to the lives of loved ones, to the people we do not know. We thank you for all your creations big and small and for how you provide for us. May this day of thanksgiving be filled with love and kindness. Amen

reverently attending to closure

Reverence: the Practice of Paying Attention

by Barbara Brown Taylor  (from An Altar in the World, pp. 21, 24)

Reverence is the recognition of something greater than the self—something that is beyond human creation or control, that transcends full human understanding. God certainly meets those criteria, but so do birth, death, sex, nature, justice, and wisdom…

Reverence stands in awe of something—something that dwarfs the self, that allows human beings to sense the full extent of our limits—so that we can begin to see one another more reverently as well…

The practice of paying attention does take time. Most of us move so quickly that our surroundings become no more than the blurred scenery we fly past on our way to somewhere else. We pay attention to the speedometer, the wristwatch, the cell phone, the list of thing to do, all of which feed our illusion that life is manageable. Meanwhile, none of them meets the first criterion for reverence, which is to remind us that we are not gods. If anything, these devices sustain the illusion that we might yet be gods—if only we could find some way to do more faster.

Holy God, you invite us to open our eyes and really SEE, to perk up our ears and really LISTEN… to pay attention to all that is greater than us. Slow us down in this moment… to pay attention to you and your Word with reverence… that we might also learn to revere the holy in one another… and in each person, each creature, we encounter. In your name we pray… amen.


John 18:33-37 (Contemporary English Version)

33Pilate then went back inside. He called Jesus over and asked, "Are you the king of the Jews?"
34Jesus answered, "Are you asking this on your own or did someone tell you about me?"
35"You know I'm not a Jew!" Pilate said. "Your own people and the chief priests brought you to me. What have you done?"
36Jesus answered, "My kingdom doesn't belong to this world. If it did, my followers would have fought to keep me from being handed over to the Jewish leaders. No, my kingdom doesn't belong to this world."
37"So you are a king," Pilate replied.
"You are saying that I am a king," Jesus told him. "I was born into this world to tell about the truth. And everyone who belongs to the truth knows my voice."

Teacher Jesus, when the powerful tried to cut you down to size, you taught them of God’s kind of power. And when you gave your life for the world, we were connected forever to God’s kingdom. Draw us now, into your kind of power. Teach us how to hear your voice above all other voices. In your name we pray… amen.


Come, Lord Jesus    by Madeleine L’Engle

Come, my Lord! Our darkness end!
Break the bonds of time and space.
All the power of evil rend
By the radiance of your face.
The laughing stars with joy attend:
Come, Lord, Jesus! Be my end!

Lord Jesus, there are so many different endings that we face, losses that have left us without closure: lost employment, the deaths of loved ones, relationships that are on rocky ground, dreams that didn’t come true. And then we have endings that feel right, like we know it’s time to move on and start again. Fill us with confidence in you. Help us to trust that you are there at all our beginnings and endings, giving us the courage and strength we need. In your name we pray… amen.

Good Fences Make Good Neighbors. by Heidi Jakoby

Three reflections from Bread for your journey November 12, 2009.

Reflection One: Mending Wall

by Robert Frost

Something there is that doesn't love a wall,
That sends the frozen-ground-swell under it,
And spills the upper boulders in the sun,
And makes gaps even two can pass abreast.
The work of hunters is another thing:
I have come after them and made repair
Where they have left not one stone on a stone,
But they would have the rabbit out of hiding,
To please the yelping dogs. The gaps I mean,
No one has seen them made or heard them made,
But at spring mending-time we find them there.
I let my neighbor know beyond the hill;
And on a day we meet to walk the line
And set the wall between us once again.
We keep the wall between us as we go.
To each the boulders that have fallen to each.
And some are loaves and some so nearly balls
We have to use a spell to make them balance:
'Stay where you are until our backs are turned!'
We wear our fingers rough with handling them.
Oh, just another kind of out-door game,
One on a side. It comes to little more:
There where it is we do not need the wall:
He is all pine and I am apple orchard.
My apple trees will never get across
And eat the cones under his pines, I tell him.
He only says, 'Good fences make good neighbors'.
Spring is the mischief in me, and I wonder
If I could put a notion in his head:
'Why do they make good neighbors? Isn't it
Where there are cows?
But here there are no cows.
Before I built a wall I'd ask to know
What I was walling in or walling out,
And to whom I was like to give offence.
Something there is that doesn't love a wall,
That wants it down.' I could say 'Elves' to him,
But it's not elves exactly, and I'd rather
He said it for himself. I see him there
Bringing a stone grasped firmly by the top
In each hand, like an old-stone savage armed.
He moves in darkness as it seems to me~
Not of woods only and the shade of trees.
He will not go behind his father's saying,
And he likes having thought of it so well
He says again, "Good fences make good neighbors."

Second Reflection: Let It All Come Out by the Newsboys listen at the link below.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o4FrNy8EWRQ


Who, who's touched you child? Now you can't feel a thing, not anything
Who's been the one telling you lies? Now you'll believe anything
OH YOU GOTTA LET, LET IT ALL COME OUT
LET IT ALL COME OUT RIGHT NOW RIGHT NOW
How, how many fires, to make you feel pure again, alive again?
And what will it take, what has to break, for you to begin again?
What will it take?
[Repeat Chorus]

Lift yourself out of it all
Come out from the shadows to the sun
Oh you gotta lift yourself out of it all
Yesterday's over, a new one's begun
You're only sick as all your secrets
Let them all come out, let them come
'Cause the devil came to steal your name away
The devil came to give your name away
OH LET, LET IT ALL COME OUT
LET, LET IT ALL COME OUT
LET, LET IT ALL COME OUT
RIGHT NOW
RIGHT NOW

Reflection Three: Mark 13:1-8

Jesus Foretells the Future

1 As Jesus was leaving the Temple that day, one of his disciples said, “Teacher, look at these magnificent buildings! Look at the impressive stones in the walls.”

2 Jesus replied, “Yes, look at these great buildings. But they will be completely demolished. Not one stone will be left on top of another!”

3 Later, Jesus sat on the Mount of Olives across the valley from the Temple. Peter, James, John, and Andrew came to him privately and asked him, 4 “Tell us, when will all this happen? What sign will show us that these things are about to be fulfilled?”

5 Jesus replied, “Don’t let anyone mislead you, 6 for many will come in my name, claiming, ‘I am the Messiah.’[a] They will deceive many. 7 And you will hear of wars and threats of wars, but don’t panic. Yes, these things must take place, but the end won’t follow immediately. 8 Nation will go to war against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. There will be earthquakes in many parts of the world, as well as famines. But this is only the first of the birth pains, with more to come.

selections to munch on…

The items on the menu for this week's Bread for Your Journey include 3 stories in chronological order, each followed by some words of prayer.  The first takes place in  Phoenicia, some 8 centuries before the next story, which happens in Jerusalem at the time of Jesus.  The third story is current, as in it took place yesterday, Nov. 5, 2009.

1st Selection:  She put it all on the line  (I Kings 17:8-16)
Dramatic presentation:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wnq0fOQ1A2Q  (It gives you a pretty authentic taste of life in ancient times...  if you can overlook the Elizabethan English in the middle section!)

Or you can just plain read the story:  http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=I%20Kings%2017:8--16&version=MSG)

Living God, thank you for your people of ancient times who can be our heroes now… those who inspire us with faith-filled choices, even when their circumstances are desperate. Thank you God, for this woman of faith whose name was not remembered but whose bold actions now fill our souls. She put her whole self in, God, into that cake of bread prepared for a stranger. Teach us now, to put our whole selves into serving you... and all the strangers we encounter… who are not at all strangers to you. In your name we pray… amen.
 
 
Second Selection:  Jesus points out the hero (Mark 12:38-44)
http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=mark%2012:38-44&version=NCV

Lord Jesus, our counter-cultural teacher, you amaze us again and again with your ability to see what’s important. When everyone else was ooing and ahing at those chicly dressed and those dumping loads of cash into the plate, you saw the real hero in the room: the almost invisible one, the one loaded with trust. As we struggle with our choices, as we wander and wonder, fill us with faith like that! And use our simple gifts, like you used this woman’s coins, to inspire others who are wandering. In your name we pray… amen.

3rd Selection:  Unlikely heroes put their whole selves in
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21134540/vp/33652287#33652287
 
Holy Spirit blowing around our world, you are there before the news stories break. You are there whispering and shoving, urging us to do the right thing. And sometimes we listen. Sometimes we feel the shove and we jump in. For those people we just saw jumping into the fray to save the man in trouble, we give you thanks. We pray that you will continue to walk with them throughout their imprisoned days, that they might come to know you ever more fully... and that we might do so, too. In your name we pray… amen.