Redeeming Grace

Is there anything so meaningless as our saying grace before we wolf down a meal. What is this ritual that absolves our consumerism and gluttony? Does it please you to see us bow our heads and repeat meaningless words while thinking of how we will gorge ourselves on sugar and saturated fat and all the deadly, slow-killing things we love?

Teach us, Father, to seek your food, clean and pure. To understand fruits and vegetables and meat as you made them and to enjoy the simple richness of them. Teach us the sactity of savoring and wondering. And when we thank you for this food, may we really thank you. Jesus, after your death and ressurection made you unrecognizable on the Emmas road, you were recognized by the way you thanked the Father for bread. I want to thank you like that.

May my thanks be full of every golden field of grain, every cloud pregnant with rain, of long summer days, and gentle winds. May it shine with the brilliance of the sun and be pure and fresh like the nurturing streams. May they be as wide as the fields that stretch to the horizon and as simple as a seed, packed with all the stuff of life. May my thanks bring me to be present in what you've really given on our table -- much more than could be carried in plastic, cardboard, and styrofoam form a supermarket. Make my thanks as wide and rich as this great green world of goodness that you have gifted to men. Amen. And thanks.