As I write this our part of the family has just returned from Comox, where we gathered for a Thanksgiving feast of food, fun and story-telling. I remember hearing that on Thanksgiving weekend, in BC, more turkey is consumed than at Christmas, and wonder about all the families gathering, whatever their ancestral roots, faith systems, gender constructs, or social status, to celebrate the bounties of the harvest. Grateful for another year on the planet, and for family and friends, snuggling around the table.
It is heartening to think of our world in that way. Of our common roots in harvest celebrations. Ancestors bringing in the sheaves, dancing on the threshing room floor, celebrating a winter’s provisions safely gathered in, or considering how to share out what’s available over the months ahead. Too often, I think, we mark our passages by conquest and wars, by lives ruined, land taken, massacres, cleansings, the rampant, rapacious, ravages of insecure ambition gone wild and unchecked. We build walls against fear and forget that those on the other side of the walls build theirs against ours. Too often we forget that we are all dependent upon the bounty of the harvest and the labour of the harvesters for life.
At harvest time, regardless of our theisms, or lack of them, we pause and remember our intimate dependency upon one another, and upon the earth that sustains us. We give thanks.
At Duncan United Church we give thanks and share a blessing over our meals, especially at our monthly dinners where church folk serve and dine with people from the community who have less of a share of the bounty of the earth than they should have. Recalling a prayer written by a Methodist Minister from Winnipeg at the turn of the last century - JS Woodsworth – we often offer something like this:
“We give thanks to the Creator for all we receive. For good food and those who bring it to our use. Those who planted it, nurtured it, brought forth the harvest and made sure it came safely to our community. Those who prepared it for our eating and those who gather with us to share in the meal. May all, one day, be so well cared for and gifted with good company as we are on this day. And may all, one day, have a roof over their heads, good food to eat and a warm hearth to gather round with friends and family. In the words of the people of this place we say – Huy ch q’u [thank you in Hul’q’ umi’ num’ – the language of the Cowichan Tribes]. Amen”
At harvest time we gather in Thanksgiving, for all we have and all we are. Perhaps this year we can extend our thanksgiving to include an active prayer of blessing for those are also in our family. Those we have put outside our walls, who reside in far off lands, and near. Those who stoop to gather food for our use, sustenance for our table. Those who live as near as the park down the street or the river bank or the sea shore. Those who find shelter in downtown alcoves, those consigned to SROs, those we name by the diseases occupying them.
In the sight, heart, breath and soul of the Creator, we are one family. United in the grace-filled blessing of abundant love poured out without counting the cost. What would our world be like if every day was a day lived out in active, thankful, prayer?
May the warmth of hearth and harvest take us there.
Keith Simmonds is in ministry at Duncan United Church, where folk are engaged in seeking justice, loving kindness and walking humbly with the Creator. He blogs at keithsimmonds.ca.
You can read more articles om our interfaith blog, Spiritually Speaking, HERE
* This article was published in the print edition of the Times Colonist on Saturday, Oct 14 2017
