Thursday, November 26, 2009

The Glad Position: Gratitude

The Bowery Mission, New York City

Scott Mission, Toronto (Torstar News Service)

Whitman Park, Grand Junction (The Christian Chronicle)

For that free Grace bringing us past great risks
& thro' great griefs surviving to this feast

sober & still, with the children unborn and born,
among brave friends, Lord, we stand again in debt
and find ourselves in the glad position: Gratitude.

We praise our ancestors who delivered us here
within warm walls all safe, aware of music,
likely toward ample & attractive meat
with whatever accompaniment

Kate in her kind ingenuity has seen fit to devise,

and we hope - across the most strange year to come -
continually to do them and You not sufficient honour
but such as we become able to devise
out of decent or joyful conscience & thanksgiving.
Yippee!
Bless then, as Thou wilt, this wilderness board.


"Minnesota Thanksgiving" by John Berryman, from Collected Poems 1937-1971
© The Noonday Press.

"Homeless Christ" by Deb Hoeffner. Used with permission of artist.
http://www.debhoeffner.com

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