Thanksgiving

Now therefore I do recommend and assign Thursday the 26th day of November next to be devoted by the People of these States to the service of that great and glorious Being, who is the beneficent Author of all the good that was, that is, or that will be ...

And also that we may then unite in most humbly offering our prayers and supplications to the great Lord and Ruler of Nations and beseech him to pardon our national and other transgressions — to enable us all, whether in public or private stations, to perform our several and relative duties properly and punctually — to render our national government a blessing to all the People, by constantly being a government of wise, just, and constitutional laws, discreetly and faithfully executed and obeyed — to protect and guide all Sovereigns and Nations (especially such as have shewn kindness unto us) and to bless them with good government, peace, and concord —

To promote the knowledge and practice of true religion and virtue, and the increase of science among them and Us — and generally to grant unto all mankind such a degree of temporal prosperity as he alone knows to be best.

—President George Washington
Thanksgiving Proclamation, 1789

gratitude

Seek to cultivate a buoyant, joyous sense

of the crowded kindnesses of God

in your daily life

~Alexander Maclaren

faith

"To study different religions need not imply infidelity to one's own faith, but rather it may be enlarged by seeing how other people have sought for reality and have been enriched by their search."

Knowledge leads to understanding, and understanding to tolerance of people with different viewpoints. In this light I began my exploration, and to reveal my discovery before I talk about the journey, I found that there is, indeed, but one God, one God who is worshiped by thousands of different names, but one God. The most powerfully positive statements about religion have always been nonsectarian and have always led to the same conclusion — worship God in whatever way you may, but worship God.

As the historian Arnold Toynbee said, "The true purpose of a higher religion is to radiate the spiritual counsels and truths that are its essence into as many souls as it can reach, in order that each of these souls may be enabled thereby to fulfill the true end of man. Man's true end is to glorify God and to enjoy Him forever."

—Rabbi Roger Ross

Prayer

Lord, make me an instrument of your peace.
Where there is hatred, let me sow love;
where there is injury, pardon;
where there is doubt, faith;
where there is despair, hope;
where there is darkness, light;
and where there is sadness, joy.

O Divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek
to be consoled as to console;
to be understood as to understand;
to be loved as to love.
For it is in giving that we receive;
it is in pardoning that we are pardoned;
and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life. Amen

—Prayer of St. Francis of Assisi

heading out west

Fireflies
And these are my vices:
impatience, bad temper, wine,
the more than occasional cigarette,
an almost unquenchable thirst to be kissed,
a hunger that isn't hunger
but something like fear, a staunching of dread
and a taste for bitter gossip
of those who've wronged me-for bitterness-
and flirting with strangers and saying sweetheart
to children whose names I don't even know
and driving too fast and not being Buddhist
enough to let insects live in my house
or those cute little toylike mice
whose soft grey bodies in sticky traps
I carry, lifeless, out to the trash
and that I sometimes prefer the company of a book
to a human being, and humming
and living inside my head
and how as a girl I trailed a slow-hipped aunt
at twilight across the lawn
and learned to catch fireflies in my hands,
to smear their sticky, still-pulsing flickering
onto my fingers and earlobes like jewels.
Cecilia Woloch, from Carpathia. © BOA Editions, Ltd.

Our true home is in the present moment.
The miracle is not to walk on water.
The miracle is to walk on the green earth in the present moment.
Peace is all around us--in the world and in nature--and within us--in our bodies and our spirits.
Once we learn to touch this peace, we will be healed and transformed.
Thich Nhat Hanh