Dear Friends,

I’ve just wiped powdered sugar and a trail of cream cheese frosting fingerprints from every surface in my kitchen. It turns out, my eight-year-old daughter’s “help” frosting pumpkin rolls is an immersive experience. The house smells of roasting vegetables, there’s forty people due here in the morning for pie breakfast, and I forgot to pick up the extra chairs from work. 

But… at this moment, there’s a cup of tea steaming by my side, the wind is gusting at the windows, and two dogs are curled by my feet. Things here are momentarily peaceful (ignoring the gaggle of teenage boys hollering from the family room – two of whom just passed by carrying boxing gloves). In this season, peaceful moments can be short lived, so I’ll carry on with my tea, and the rattle of the windows, and the sleeping dogs while I can.

In this moment my thoughts turn to all of you. This little intermittent practice of Each Holy Hour is a joy in my life. Kim and I often find ourselves expressing gratitude for this practice that, while occasional, allows us the gift of panning for gold in the stream of our lives. We’re grateful to each of you that participate in this endeavor with us, as subscribers, readers, commenters. In whatever capacity you are with us, we’re thankful.

Kim has penned this beautiful blessing for your Thanksgiving. Along with the turkey and trimmings, mashed potatoes and cornbread, and, of course, pie, may it nourish you.

With gratitude,

Lindsay & Kim

______________

May we give thanks today
For our families, friends, and neighbors,
For fresh vegetables, socks, and hot showers.

We give thanks today for our difficult people
who tear rifts into the soil of our assumptions,
giving space for new seeds to take root.

We give thanks for this earth,
so ill-used by generations, ours included,
that still nurtures, enchants, and calls us to attention.

We give thanks for the faces that beseech us
to look up from our feast
into the eyes of the hungry, displaced, and wounded.

We give thanks for good books
and for the imperfect people who wrote them,
music that dissolves time, art that allows us to see with fresh eyes.

We give thanks for robust imaginations,
for the facility of our hands and strength of our bodies,
for silence and story.

For restlessness and displacement, home and belonging,
For vision and purpose, thresholds and journey,
For being caught by surprise.

For those who love us despite what we do,
All who welcome us into perpetual becoming,
All whom we are privileged to love.

For the grace that pursues us,
the hands that heal us,
the joy that surprises us,
the presence that accompanies us,
we give thanks.