...tell one thing

For the harvests of the Spirit, thanks be to God.

For the good we all inherit, thanks be to God.

For the wonders that astound us, for the truths that still confound us,

most of all, that love has found us, thanks be to God.

---Fred Pratt Green, 1970

I know you’ve done it, and I know it has made you squirm, sigh, or roll your eyes (depending on your generation). Go around the circle --- the grownups’ table AND the kids’ table at your family Thanksgiving, the fellowship tables at church supper in November, the class seating arrangement in Sunday School --- and tell one thing you’re thankful for. Is there any exercise guaranteed to bring out the trite and repetitive in all of us? And yet, is there any chance most of us would stop to express gratitude for the richness of this life without going around the circle?

This hymn is a list of rich joys of the abundant life for which we can all be thankful; the list includes thanks for things I never thought of as rich until Fred Pratt Green brought them to my attention between the covers of our hymnal. No matter how world-wise and jaded we get, wonders still astound us, and (thank God) some truths still confound us. And best of all, love has found us.

There’s a place for us in the circle. Go around…thanks be to God.

...with our hands

Now thank we all our God with heart and hands and voices,

who wondrous things hath done, in whom His world rejoices;

who, from our mother’s arms, hath blessed us on our way

with countless gifts of love, and still is ours today.

---Marin Rinkhart, 1636

I wish that I had written the first line of this hymn (well, I might have tweaked the grammar a little, but otherwise…). We are used to, even weary of, talking about giving thanks. We have a holiday reserved for it (well, named for it…the holiday is reserved more and more for eating and Christmas shopping). We debate whether we teach our children well enough to say thank you as they grow up, and whether we continue that courtesy as adults. We spend our table graces and parts of our corporate and private prayers in thanksgiving for our blessings. This is not a novel thought.

The genius part? Thanking God with our hands. Now I get the thanking with our voices, and with our hearts, but with our hands? I like this way of thinking about thanking. What form would thanking with your hands take? Would you ‘pay it forward’? Would you practice random acts of kindness? Would you give more than you thought you could? Would you find yourself going above and beyond, if you thanked with you heart, your hands, your voice?

...from overflowing love

Because I have been given much I too must give;

Because of thy great bounty, Lord, each day I live

I will give love to those in need, shall show that love by word and deed;

Thus shall my thanks be thanks, indeed.

---Grace Noll Crowell, 1936

The fact that you can prove anything with scripture notwithstanding, I think “prosperity” theology has it all backwards. You have heard this theology preached somewhere, sometime, and it is pretty attractive. If you give, God gives to you in multiples of what you’ve given. If you want to be rich, give away lots of money, then start raking in the returns.

I think this hymn text has it right. We don’t give to get…we give because we have. We take care of others because we’ve been provided for. We change the situations of others because God’s love has changed our situations. We give not to build up for ourselves, but because we have storehouses of the richness of life already.

When we give from the overflowing love of God in our lives, our thanks are enlivened in a way that prosperity could never do.

...the weary road

And ye, beneath life's crushing load,
whose forms are bending low,
who toil along the climbing way
with painful steps and slow,
Look now! for glad and golden hours
come swiftly on the wing.
O rest beside the weary road,
and hear the angels sing!
---Edmund H. Sears, 1849

Are you on the weary road? Not yet? Almost? Running parallel, and hoping to avoid the cross street that will carry you there? I don't mind telling you, I've been there---sometimes through no fault of my own, life's roadmap having directed me there through circumstance or happenstance, and me none the wiser. Sometimes, that destination was the fault of my own internal GPS, sending me down roads for which I was ill-equipped, weighed down with too much freight, exceeding the maximum passenger limit, barreling down some highway to God-knows-where, God-knows-why, because I have long ago forgotten the where and why. I'm weary, and that's what I know.

Right about then---right about now---angel song would sure sound nice. Right about then---right about now---I could lay down my burdens, and stretch my aching muscles, tense from constant alertness for that next thing coming to ambush my perfectly good day. Right about then---right about now---pulling over onto the shoulder of that weary road, and wrapping a blanket around me, climbing onto the hood of the car and leaning against the smooth windshield would feel pretty fine. Right about then---right about now---bathing in the starfall of a zillion messengers with heart-burstingly good news of real peace feels like all the heaven I need.

Right about then---right about now---glad and golden hours. Thanks be.

...this wild symphony

This is my Father's world, and to my listening ears,

all nature sings, and round me rings the music of the spheres.

This is my Father's world, I rest me in the thought

of rocks and trees, of skies and seas; Your hand the wonders wrought.

---Maltbie D. Babcock, 1901

I am writing this Grace Note from Montreat Conference Center, where I am growing and learning at the annual Conference on Worship and Music. And friends, literally everything here is entrusted with a song! There is not a room, porch, or open space where the sounds of song, instrument, prayer, laughter, discourse, encouragement, children's games do not float on the breeze (even the breeze may be whispering!). Open windows and doors let the sounds blend and weave in delicious ways. I would swear to you that even the rhododendron leaves rubbing together in the night wind, the water spilling over the falls, the rocks being skipped in the lake are composing their own Foothills tune, secret and turning and hard to catch, but no less real. Physicists and astronomers tell us that the universe even vibrates in tune to its own pitch --- B-flat...that's right, the universe is singing!

What a world we people, where even nature sings! Whose mind could conceive, whose hand shape, whose presence bless a thrumming, vibrating, singing universe like ours?

This good God, Creator and Nurturer and Sustainer of this wild symphony, solar system to cell! Thanks be!

...thanks be, blessing be.

The earth hums with frequencies
of deep joy before you!
I join the eternal procession of all
echoing the gladness of abiding 
in your presence.
I have known on my very soul 
that you are God.
You have made me for you,
and you shepherd me.
I draw near to you garbed in gratitude,
close to you perfumed with praise.
Thanks be,
blessing be.
For you are the heart of goodness;
the steadfastness of your love 
began before, and lasts into forever;
the steadiness of your faithful attention
is for generations long gone and yet to come.
Thanks be,
blessing be.
---Psalm 100 (para. laca)

...just what I needed

Who would think that what was needed to transform and save the earth
might not be a plan or army, proud in purpose, proved in worth?
Who would think, despite derision, that a child should lead the way?
God surprises earth with heaven, coming here on Christmas Day.
---John L. Bell and Graham Maule, 1987

"Oh, it's just what I needed!" I wonder how many times this refrain was heard around Christmas trees and hearths today as family and friends gathered and opened packages. I also wonder how many different ways there are to speak this simple statement --- "Just what I needed!" "Just what I needed?" "JUST what I NEEDED!" (teen angst version) "Juuuuust what I needed!" (flat tire when you're running late version). The funny thing is, there have been a couple of times I've gotten that gift, you know the one, that I can't quite figure out. I don't know the giver's motivation, or what good it will be to me, or (honestly) whether this person even knows me at all. It's the kind of gift that tempts me to say, in one of it's variations, "Just what I needed?"

The world, then as it does now, clamored for a ruler with some muscle behind his rhetoric. A little firepower to back up his diplomacy. Someone with the guts to stick it to the man, not back down,  to throw off the yoke of Roman oppression. Enemies smell weakness, they will eat you alive. No time, this, for peacemakers, for path-straighteners, for do-gooders, for God's sake.

And then the gift we are given, the one that confuses and confounds, turns out to be our salvation. Turns out to be "just what we needed".

Thanks be to God, on this Christmas Day, that we don't get to pick out our own gifts.

50 Ways to Celebrate!

Hello, friends! In this month of November, I will turn 50 years old. Now many of you may be asking, "What in the world can I do to make Leigh Anne's birthday memorable?!" Well, I'll tell you! For the 50 days leading up to the big day, I have been doing something small to help make the world around me a little better place, and I'm asking you to join me. The list that follows consists of 50 examples of acts of kindness, ways to invest in your community, from which you might want to choose one. When you have picked an act of kindness, and performed it, you can wish me a happy birthday by reporting on your kindness, either here on the blog or on my facebook page.
I'll have a great birthday month, and we'll all be better for it! If you're ready to roll up your sleeves, read on! And thanks in advance for helping me to make this birthday a really meaningful one!

50 Ways to Celebrate

1. Give blood.
2. Donate to your local food bank. $ go furthest, but peanut butter and tuna are welcome.
3. Donate to domestic violence shelter: working cell phones, black trash bags, bleach.
4. Donate household goods and clothes: ACHR allows eligible clients to shop free.
5. Pay at the drive-through for the next customer in line.
6. Offer to rake an elderly neighbor's yard.
7. Write a note to an old friend with whom you've been out of touch.
8. Tell a family member something you love about them.
9. Apologize sincerely for something you've done, or failed to do.
10. Celebrate someone else's good fortune.
11. Sit and mourn with a grieving person.
12. Thank someone for an uplifting tweet or facebook post.
13. Compliment someone on something other than appearance.
14. Write a letter or email to someone in public service, thanking him or her for their work on behalf of the community.
15. Walk somewhere instead of driving.
16. Listen to a child.
17. Listen to an elderly person, at their pace.
18. Drink water at a meal out, and donate the price of it.
19. Buy a $5 bunch of flowers. Give them to a stranger.
20. Sing a song out loud.
21. Drink a glass of clean, virtually-free tap water, then make a donation to a clean water organization, such as Watering Malawi or Living Waters for the World.
22. Spend 2 hours volunteering@ a school cleanup, assisted-living facility, library, food bak, or Big House.
23. Write a poem.
24. Unload the dishwasher when its not your turn.
25. Vacuum out someone's car for them.
26. Offer to take someone's empty grocery cart to the corral for them.
27. Donate pet food, bleach, or used bed and bath linens to the animal shelter.
28. Hug someone when they need it, even if you don't.
29. Forgive someone who has wronged you.
30. Gather up the change lying around your home, and donate it to a charity. Roll it first.
31. Fill the bird feeder...even if the squirrel will get some.
32. Invest in someone's dream: make a microloan on kiva.org.
33. Pet your cat or dog when you don't feel like it.
34. Return a gentle answer for rude words. Again.
35. Laugh at a bad joke. Someone else's.
36. Smile at a stranger.
37. Let someone else choose the restaurant or activity for the evening.
38. Step out of your comfort zone to make someone else comfortable.
39. Pray about something that does not personally affect you.
40. Sit in a new place @ church, school, or a gathering.
41. Forgive yourself. You can't reach for something better if you are holding tight to your failure.
42. Be open to a new idea or perspective.
43. Leave the laundry or emails. Treat yourself to a few minutes outside.
44. Let someone teach you something.
45. Take a moment to honor the memory of someone you love.
46. Leave an extra tip.
47. Cede control of the remote.
48. Write an encouraging note to someone training in your career field.
49. Carry a sack with you on your walk. Pick up trash along the way.
50. Post a 5th grade picture of yourself on facebook, to encourage a 5th grader you know.