Annie’s Mailbox: Thanksgiving prayer to share today

Dear Readers: Happy Thanksgiving to one and all! We hope you are fortunate enough to be spending the holiday with family and friends. We also hope you remembered those who are alone today and would love to be part of your family on this occasion. If it’s too late to include them this year, please make a note on your calendar to invite them next year.

Our special thanks to those readers who are spending the day volunteering at shelters and soup kitchens. Bless you for your kind hearts and generosity of spirit.

Dear Annie: A few times in the past, you have printed a Thanksgiving Prayer. The first time I saw it, I cut it out of the paper and read it at our Thanksgiving table. It perfectly expressed what I wanted to say.

Unfortunately, I misplaced the poem last year. With all of the chaos after the big meal, I think it was accidentally thrown out. Would you please print it again? This time I will be sure to put it in a very special place so I can have it to read every year. – Grateful in Arizona

Dear Grateful: With pleasure. Here it is:

Thanksgiving Prayer

We come to this table today, O Lord, humble and thankful and glad.

We thank Thee first for the great miracle of life, for the exaltation of being human, for the capacity to love.

We thank Thee for joys both great and simple –

For wonder, dreams and hope;

For the newness of each day;

For laughter and song and a merry heart;

For compassion waiting within to be kindled;

For the forbearance of friends and the smile of a stranger;

For the arching of the earth and trees and heavens and the fruit of all three;

For the wisdom of the old;

For the courage of the young;

For the promise of the child;

For the strength that comes when needed;

For this family united here today.

Of those to whom much is given, much is required. May we and our children remember this. Amen.