Dear Kaleid Ladies,
Good morning to you!
Today, we offer you a smile.
And a virtual hug or some flowers...whatever your soul needs to remember it is cherished and loved.
And we offer another poem from civil rights legend Dr. Howard Thurman that adds beautiful words to our urges to let God fortify us.
We are all trying to steady ourselves right now--trying to learn to simply be where we are, in our today, breathing deeply of grace. But we hold our breaths for a reason. Humans are survivors, and this internal bracing is our instinctive effort to mitigate the ebb and flow of ambient anxiety that swirls, pungent and toxic. But breath holding ultimately diminishes us.
Gratitude helps us remember to breathe.
It does so because it reminds us that the atmosphere is not, in fact, toxic. We live inside of the relentless and pursuant love of the God who made us and keeps us. Paul said, “He is not far from any one of us. For in Him we live, and move, and have our being.” (Acts 17) And so we embrace thanksgiving as a defiant, clarifying, space-making, breath-empowering delight.
A LITANY OF THANKSGIVING
In Your presence, O God, we make our Sacrament of Thanksgiving.
We begin with the simple things of our days:
Fresh air to breathe,
Cool water to drink,
The taste of food,
The protection of houses and clothes,
The comforts of home.
For all these we make an act of Thanksgiving this day!
We bring to mind all the warmth of humankind that we have known:
Our mothers’ arms,
The strength of our fathers,
The playmates of our childhood,
The wonderful stories brought to us from the lives of many who
talked of days gone by when fairies and giants and diverse kinds
of magic held sway;
The tears we have shed, the tears we have seen;
The excitement of laughter and the twinkle in the eye with
its reminder that life is good.
For all these we make an act of Thanksgiving this day.
Howard Thurman
Gratefully,
The Kaleid Team
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