The study this week is written by Elizabeth Bryce. Please post your comments and feedback and I will do my best to respond during the week.
Take a moment to centre yourself in prayer:
Merciful Creator, we breathe in your Spirit.
With all our senses we open ourselves to your creation;
filling our noses with the smell of baking;
filling our eyes with a riot of colour;
filling our hands with the weight of the harvest;
filling our ears with the crunch of crackling leaves;
filling our mouths with the taste of your goodness.
Fill our hearts also, O God, with the wisdom to recognize these blessings, the humility to give thanks and the compassion to share with others. Amen
In Canada, this week, we take a break from the lectionary readings and reflect on the harvest celebration of Thanksgiving.
- Each fall, the Ojibwe people celebrated Wataybugaw, meaning the changing of the colours, holding pow-wows as a symbol of their thanks to creator and to community.
- In 1578, the explorer Martin Frobisher celebrated a European-style service in Newfoundland, to give thanks for safe passage across the ocean.
- Samuel de Champlain marked a harvest festival shared with the aboriginal people near his settlement in the early 17th century (unfortunately, the sharing didn’t last long.)
- The October date for Thanksgiving was not set until 1957, when it was set for the second Monday in October because of conflicting observances between a November Thanksgiving and November 11 Armistice/Remembrance Day.
Questions for reflection:
What makes you feel thankful?
What are the obstacles that might stand in the way of your wholehearted celebration of thanksgiving?
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Posts
I am thankful for the beauty of creation - every time I look out the window in my living room or go for a hike in the woods. I am thankful for my friends and extended family who worship with me at Rideau Park. I am thankful for the church's leadership, and the Spirit active in the church. I am thankful for running water as I turn on a tap. I am thankful that God prompts me to pray for people and to help when I can...the list is too long of things for which I am thankful. Most of all, I guess I am thankful for the great potential for miracles which comes from our relationship with God. I'm thankful that someday all will notice this blessing.
ReplyDeleteAs far as obstacles - I love to have a family meal, but I do not like to cook! I am thankful, however, that there is food to be cooked! Chris Inrig
I am also thankful that I do not have to produce the foods we share at Thanksgiving from my own hands! Otherwise we would be carving up the roast zuccini - we have one that is the size of a small turkey - and not much more! I am truly thankful that God gave us all a variety of gifts, so that some might be turkey farmers, and others pumpkin pie bakers, and others those who write the sermon that remind us what the holiday is about, Elizabeth
ReplyDelete