THANKSGIVING CONSERVATION WITH THE CREATOR

At this Thanksgiving season, to make a litany of the things I'm thankful for would take up this whole newspaper and then some, all in very small print. Still, at this season of the year when the harvest is in and there is a certain summing up, one wants, almost seems impelled, to reflect on past and present blessings and have frequent and spontaneous conversations with God.

"Thank you, God, for life, your plan of salvation so that life may become everlasting, your guidance, your forgiveness when I acknowledge I have strayed from your teaching, your very present help in time of trouble, your promises that always keep me looking forward to something better, for the sending of your son Jesus so we could hear from you as directly as one human talking to another, look into your face as one human does another, talk about love and hate and sin and forgiveness, courage and tolerance, belief and joy and the things that are absolutes as one human to another," would seem to cover about everything. But somehow these heartfelt words are like something sealed and put away for all time in some spiritual lock box, a covenant to be held in perpetuity.

In addition to that once and for all prayer of Thanksgiving, I like to have little running conversations either silently or aloud, everyday, as one human talks to another in today's language.

"Thank you God, for that pretty little chickadee that has just flown to the perch of the feeder, picked out a seed and flown elsewhere to eat it. He does not stay at the feeder like the goldfinch and house finch, but you know that. I just want you to know that I noticed it, part of your handiwork. I notice a lot of your handiwork. I think you put it here for us to see and I am ever looking.

"Thank you for the poppy seedlings that are coming up, insuring part of next year's colorful world. It is so good of you to make this a beautiful and colorful world for us when you didn't have to. I read a poem today about seeds. Thank you for the author who said, among other things, as she held and looked at a handful of seeds, `In this brown husk a dale of hawthorne dreams, a cedar in this narrow cell is thrust that will drink deeply of a century's streams...Here I can blow a garden with my breath, and in my hand a forest lies asleep.' She had a reverence toward seeds that I do, does Muriel Stuart.

"Thank you for the person who caught me today when I nearly missed a stair step. Was he my guardian angel for the moment? Do guardian angels appear in different guises at different times? You know, of course, that some people would say `poppycock' to this idea, and sorry as I am they feel this way, still I thank you for free will, freedom to choose what we think.

"This is a pumpkin pie I'm making this morning, as if you didn't know. Don't let me reach for the black pepper instead of the cinnamon. I'm doing things like that more often these days and I thank you that I can laugh about it. Pumpkin pie and the children coming and the loyalty and love we'll see in each other's eyes. I see you there, God.

"You made a beautiful picture for me yesterday, God, when the cardinal lit on the bowl of the bird bath which I've already upturned for the winter. His quizzical eyes seemed to say, "Where's the water?" And then a squirrel hopped up to, not disturbing the cardinal at all, but as if to help search for the water.

"I see how you have placed the three stars in Orion's belt and I thank you for this very visual order in the universe. Always there, never varying.

"Like David of old who pleaded with you, God, to make it plain to him what you would have him do, I, too, who walk more slowly now, take more time to remember names, sometimes reach for black pepper instead of cinnamon, ask for you to make it plain to me what my role is in the world today the world in which the Lion of Evil still stalks the streets, but the world in which your Divine Order still rules. I accept this life in its totality because I accept you as the continuing Creator and Sustainer.

"I think I heard the last cricket of the season a few days ago, but it is only his rest stop in the music of the universe. I heard your wind at the whistling window today, the contented, simmery singing of the teakettle, the clock marking time, the conversation of the finches at their feeding, and eventually the silence of the night where Orion's three lights keep watch from everlasting to everlasting."

REJOICE!