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Saving Grace Address by Joan Harrison Sunday 14 October 2007 |
Saving Grace
When was the last time you said grace before eating a meal? This morning at Breakfast? At dinner last night? Easter? Christmas? The last meal you ate with friends or family that adhered to the practice? Was it a real expression of gratitude or does the whole process make you squirm?
I have been making an effort to include a simple expression of gratitude at sit down meals for several years. There were lots of years, however when that was not my practice.
My beginnings were in a farming family that were active members of the United Church in Moosomin, Saskatchewan. Breakfast, dinner (at noon) and supper were sit down meals but we rarely said grace at ordinary times. Grace was reserved for company meals when the good dishes came out –it was part of what made a special meal special. The graces were short and although they were directed to God, that was usually an inferred rather than stated. The two most common ones used in my family circle were:
“For what we are about to receive, let us be truly thankful, Amen. “
“Bless this food for the use of our bodies, Amen”
Sometimes, say after my Auntie Marj had been off doing a stint as a camp leader, we sang the grace. There were no long drawn-out blessings and the process didn’t make me squirm. However, as a young adult when I left home, I left the idea of saying grace there as well. It would be part of the holiday meals and that was about that. Not too surprisingly, I didn’t attend church much in my late teens and early twenties.
Somewhere in the early years of parenthood, after connecting with both Mike and this congregation, the need to say grace started building. Saying grace was a simple spiritual practice and at that point both simple and spiritual were rather pertinent. My renewed interest in grace was also strongly linked to respecting where food comes from: the soil, the plants, the animals, the farmers, the grocers. It is not too surprising that this was a focus: I came from a farm family, grew big gardens, was apart of a food co-op, bought a lot of groceries, and hung out with organic farmers.
When I look at the Unitarian statement of principles, two of them seem particularly linked to an expression of gratitude about food.The way the list is usually presented, they are the first and the last:
- The inherent worth and dignity of every person.
Farmers and field hands the world over don’t get much respect. Food processing jobs tend to be demanding and have relatively low wages. The only place I am aware of that really gives farmers high status is modern day Cuba. After the changes in the USSR, they were left without outside supplies of fuel or agricultural chemicals. Cuba went organic by necessity and had to completely change how and where food was grown. They have done amazingly well. Farmers are highly respected and earn more money than most other professionals.
Starting to focus on who makes your meals possible by including it in a simple grace, gets you thinking about where you source your food and who you support. Here is a grace that I found in my web-search that is attributed to Unitarians:
“Thanks to all hands, seen and unseen, that have placed this food before us."
To my mind this is thoughtful but incomplete.
It is not just farmers or farm workers that should be viewed with respect. Humans and the food we eat are part of the living system of the planet, which brings us to that last, but in my view, most important principle on our list:
- Respect for the interdependent web of all existence of which we are a part
We are one of many living things. Every meal depends on other living entities giving us their bodies. That is true whether you are eating lamb or lettuce. A short, pointed grace also found on the web, from a wiccan source encapsulates this seventh principle:
"Thank you for dying so we may eat you!"
That one focuses on the web of life but ignores the workers.
A more complete grace, attributed to the Unitarian tradition comes from a book called A Grateful Heart: Daily Blessings for the Evening Meal from Buddha to The Beatles (page 100),
The food which we are about to eat is Earth, Water and Sun, compounded through the alchemy of many plants.
Therefore Earth, Water and Sun will become part of us.
This food is also the fruit of the labor of many beings and creatures.
We are grateful for it.
May it give us strength, health, joy.
And may it increase our love.
That grace I can see using for a formal occasion (when you could read it). My daily graces are much simpler. Sometimes it is just “ I give thanks”. Usually, I try to honour the food and those who made it possible to arrive on my plate—that includes me, if I have been the cook.
So, to conclude, here’s why saying grace is important to me:
-it helps me ‘be here now’—brings my focus out of my busy wandering brain, to the meal
-it brings my attention to what I am eating, where it comes from
-lets me express respect for the plants, animals and human labour, including my own, that brought the food to my plate
The challenge that I have given myself, is to start being more thankful and aware of the food consumed in quick snacks. This is partly about respect for the food and partly about respect for my waist line!
I look forward to hearing your thoughts at response time.
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