A Litany of Thanksgiving

For many years, I always cooked Thanksgiving dinner for our whole family and friends away from their homes.

- Wright Edelman

Before our meal, children read various inspirational passages and this beautiful prayer by great Black theologian Howard Thurman, A Litany of Thanksgiving. After my sister Olive moved back to our hometown, we continued this tradition for many more years as we gathered to celebrate Thanksgiving with her in Bennettsville, South Carolina. She too, loved this prayer. Found in his book Meditations of the Heart. It is an expression of thanks for all that has sustained us in the past and for the hope and promise of tomorrow.

I share it here once again as I have over the years with its simple and profound sense of gratitude and the eternal hope that our kind “will study war no more, that love and tenderness and all the inner graces of Almighty affection will cover the life of the children of God as the waters cover the sea.”

Today, I make my Sacrament of Thanksgiving.

I begin with the simple things of my days:

Fresh air to breathe,

Cool water to drink,

The taste of food,

The protection of houses and clothes, 

The comforts of home.

For all these, I make an act of Thanksgiving this day!

I bring to mind all the warmth of humankind that I have known: