Wednesday, November 21, 2007, Thanksgiving

Today's text

John 6:32-35

Jesus answered them: “In all truth, it was not Moses who gave you the bread from heaven, it is my Father who gives you the bread from heaven, the true bread which comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.” “Sir,” they said, “give us this bread always.” Jesus answered them: “I am the bread of life. No on who comes to me will ever hunger; no one who believes in me will ever thirst.”

Prayer

It went away, Jesus. I can’t tell you exactly when or where. But it is gone, that gnawing anxiety at the pit of my stomach. I sought to extinguish it with food and drink, risk and work, learning and accomplishment, none of which provided adequate antidote, only momentary relief.

While I don’t know when it left me, I can tell you the how and why, Jesus. And may my telling be your praise. For you are the cure, the bread, that fills the fretful hunger. What I could not remove, you graciously heal, replacing my emptiness with a loving longing to know you, to lose myself in you and never return.

I have come to know you. I have spent just enough time gazing on your face, seeing your smile, your fierce love, your living labor, that I know the beauty that flows from your oneness with the Loving Mystery you call Father.

We, too, try to name that One. Mother, some say; others say Brother or Sister, Lover or Friend, Morning Star or Silent Cry, Flowing Fountain or Living Flame. In moments of shattering blessedness, we simply fall silent, enrapt in the immensity of that love which has no name. I think our praise is fullest then, and most true.

On this and every day of thanksgiving, we remember faces present and gone, blessings long past and others that endure. We wipe away sweet tears of gratitude for our lives and for the improbable reality of life itself. I mean, why is there anything at all? And why are there grandchildren whose hugs have such a curious, sacramental power to heal, and to render most else insignificant?

I don’t know. I know very little. But I do know you, Jesus, and blessedly, I still can remember the anxious emptiness that is now gone, relieved by a bread that is food my soul need never live without. And for that, thank you. Thank you for my life.

Pr. David L. Miller