Giving thanks

Yesterday I discovered that it was Rosh Chodesh…the time of the new moon in the Jewish calendar. When I looked up the significance, I was reminded that there are special prayers added to the synagogue service, that it is a celebration particularly related to women, and that there is a special thanks added to the after meal prayer.

This got me to remembering that, in the convent, we did both a prayer before we ate and one after we ate, which parallels the Jewish tradition.

Now, in Judaism, there are specific prayers depending on what you had for the meal. I never learned all the many variations…just the primary prayer at the end of a meal with bread. And, since I do not eat bread with every meal…if I am to incorporate some sort of thank you after the meal, it will need to be a more generic one. I have decided to learn the After-Blessing on Other Foods.

After making this decision, as I was driving to the store, I began to think about the idea of thanking G-d for things in my life before and after. Like starting the day thanking him for the new day and what it would bring and, at the end, thanking him for all that he had given and for all that was experienced…both good and bad. This led to thoughts about thanking G-d for even the tough times that occur in a life.

Sometimes the universe (G-d) seems to give me the same message or direction in several different ways. As I was writing the last paragraph above, I was reminded of how I was moved to thank so many people last weekend for things they said to me or did for me during that weekend.

Perhaps the message is to be more mindful and to make thanks a part of my practice. In one other post, I shared how inadequate I sometimes feel when confronted with the many bad things that happen in the world. At the bottom of that post, I put a quote by Mother Teresa, who was an amazing woman who quietly went about her life doing what she was given to do. Maybe one way I can make a difference is to walk a path of thanksgiving. It is worth a thought or two.