{"id":3181,"date":"2011-11-24T10:44:53","date_gmt":"2011-11-24T15:44:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/dos\/?p=3181"},"modified":"2011-11-24T10:45:58","modified_gmt":"2011-11-24T15:45:58","slug":"thankful","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/dos\/2011\/11\/24\/thankful\/","title":{"rendered":"Thankful"},"content":{"rendered":"

The good Reverend Dr. Robert Allan Hill<\/a> makes it plain, \u201cHoward Thurman<\/a> was a hundred years head of his time fifty years ago.” Dr. Thurman’s poem is just right:<\/p>\n

Today, I make my Sacrament of Thanksgiving.
\nI begin with the simple things of my days:
\nFresh air to breathe,
\nCool water to drink,
\nThe taste of food,
\nThe protection of houses and clothes,
\nThe comforts of home.
\nFor all these I make an act of Thanksgiving this day!<\/p>\n

I bring to mind all the warmth of humankind that I have known:
\nMy mother\u2019s arms,
\nThe strength of my father
\nThe playmates of my childhood,
\nThe wonderful stories brought to me from the lives
\nOf many who talked of days gone by when fairies
\nAnd giants and all kinds of magic held sway;
\nThe tears I have shed, the tears I have seen;
\nThe excitement of laughter and the twinkle in the
\nEye with its reminder that life is good.
\nFor all these I make an act of Thanksgiving this day<\/p>\n

I finger one by one the messages of hope that awaited me at the crossroads:
\nThe smile of approval from those who held in their hands the reins of my security;
\nThe tightening of the grip in a simple handshake when I
\nFeared the step before me in darkness;
\nThe whisper in my heart when the temptation was fiercest
\nAnd the claims of appetite were not to be denied;
\nThe crucial word said, the simple sentence from an open
\nPage when my decision hung in the balance.
\nFor all these I make an act of Thanksgiving this day.<\/p>\n

I pass before me the main springs of my heritage:
\nThe fruits of labors of countless generations who lived before me,
\nWithout whom my own life would have no meaning;
\nThe seers who saw visions and dreamed dreams;
\nThe prophets who sensed a truth greater than the mind could grasp
\nAnd whose words would only find fulfillment
\nIn the years which they would never see;
\nThe workers whose sweat has watered the trees,
\nThe leaves of which are for the healing of the nations;
\nThe pilgrims who set their sails for lands beyond all horizons,
\nWhose courage made paths into new worlds and far off places;
\nThe saviors whose blood was shed with a recklessness that only a dream
\nCould inspire and God could command.
\nFor all this I make an act of Thanksgiving this day.<\/p>\n

I linger over the meaning of my own life and the commitment
\nTo which I give the loyalty of my heart and mind:
\nThe little purposes in which I have shared my loves,
\nMy desires, my gifts;
\nThe restlessness which bottoms all I do with its stark insistence
\nThat I have never done my best, I have never dared
\nTo reach for the highest;<\/p>\n

The big hope that never quite deserts me, that I and my kind
\nWill study war no more, that love and tenderness and all the
\ninner graces of Almighty affection will cover the life of the
\nchildren of God as the waters cover the sea.<\/p>\n

All these and more than mind can think and heart can feel,
\nI make as my sacrament of Thanksgiving to Thee,
\nOur Father, in humbleness of mind and simplicity of heart.<\/p>\n

And, of course, a simple playlist<\/a> for your travel and prep-up groove:<\/p>\n