Thank you, thank you, thank you

Author Anne LaMott has been quoted as saying, "there are two kinds of prayer:  help me, help me, help me and thank you, thank you, thank you."  We surround those two prayers with praise and longing, sadness and joy, confession and forgiveness, but at the core, these are the ever present ideas at the center of our prayers.

This week we focus on Thank You, Thank You, Thank You!  We as a nation will take a day (or if you work retail, part of a day) to gather with some special folks and take time to offer thanks.  Although I am just as big a football fan as others, giving more time to giving thanks on this third Thursday in November is a very good idea.

I say this because it can all become perfunctory; our friends, our family, our food, our homes........rattled off in quick succession without a deep consideration of exactly what good these things bring into our lives. Of course, it is not the same for everyone: some families are so challenging that giving thanks for them is beyond difficult.  For some, food is not a given and a full belly (the mark of too much stuffing and turkey taken) is a rarity.  There are those, maybe among our acquaintances, for whom avoiding foreclosure on their home is a primary worry.  They give thanks with a slightly different slant.

Yet where would we be without our children or friends?  What part of our life would be less rich, less comforting without these people we know?  Are you able to move beyond the surface and offer up thanks for some of the difficult places from which you have learned valuable lessons?  Can you move away from an attitude of scarcity towards an awareness of the abundance that is yours?

Spiritual teachers point us to the practice of giving thanks: naming something every single day for which we are thankful.  The discipline of thanksgiving raises up within us an acute awareness of all the wonder around us and we grow in recognizing blessings and being a blessing to others.  It can truly become second nature and give shade to each of our days.

Let us lift up a loud Thank You, Thank You, Thank You prayer this Thursday.  Let us outshine one another in naming all the good that God has given onto us.  Work at it.  Challenge one another to name one more thing.  Be as excited about the giving of thanks as you are about the apple pie that awaits.

Like anything, with a little practice, this will become a new way of being.  And for that I give thanks.