Dear Hyde Park Family,

The amazing Diana Butler Bass offers this prayer for Thanksgiving, published in Worship Any Time or Place. (Abingdon Press) It is well worth your reflection, and you may even choose to use all or a portion of it as part of your Thanksgiving observance with family and friends.

On behalf of the clergy, staff, and lay leadership of Hyde Park United Methodist Church, I wish you and yours a blessed season of gratitude, and a holy Advent ahead.

“A Thanksgiving Prayer”

By Diana Butler Bass

God, there are days we do not feel grateful. When we are anxious or angry. When we feel alone. When we do not understand what is happening in the world or with our neighbors.

When the news is bleak, confusing. God, we struggle to feel grateful.

But this Thanksgiving, we choose gratitude.

We choose to accept life as a gift from you, and as a gift from the unfolding work of all creation.

We choose to be grateful for the earth from which our food comes; for the water that gives life; and for the air we all breathe.

We choose to thank our ancestors, those who came before us, grateful for their stories and struggles, and we receive their wisdom as a continuing gift for today.

We choose to see our families and friends with new eyes, appreciating and accepting them for who they are. We are thankful for our homes, whether humble or grand.

We will be grateful for our neighbors, no matter how they voted, whatever our differences, or how much we feel hurt or misunderstood by them.

We choose to see the whole planet as our shared commons, the stage of the future of humankind and creation.

God, this Thanksgiving, we do not give thanks. We choose it. We make this choice of thanks with courageous hearts, knowing that it is humbling to say “thank you.” We choose to see your sacred generosity, aware that we live in an infinite circle of gratitude. That we all are guests at a hospitable table around which gifts are passed and received. We will not let anything opposed to love take over this table. Instead, we choose grace, free and unmerited love, the giftedness of life everywhere. In this choosing, and in the making, we will pass gratitude onto the world.

Thus, with you, and with all those gathered at this table, we pledge to make thanks. We ask you to strengthen us in this resolve. Here, now, and into the future. Around our family table. Around the table of our nation. Around the table of the earth.

We choose thanks.

Amen.

JOIN US FOR ADVENT AND CHRISTMAS

This Sunday begins the season of Advent, in preparation for a joyous celebration of Easter. Join us as we begin our new series called “The Christmas Letters,” based on my new book, which you can purchase online or on the Hyde Park campus this Sunday. You can also join a small group to enjoy the book with others.

You will also want to visit our All Things Christmas Page to learn about all our exciting events for Advent and Christmas.