I took my Thanksgiving Prayer from Mary Oliver’s “Six Recognitions Of God:”
“I know a lot of fancy words.

I tear them from my heart and my tongue.

Then I pray.

Lord God, mercy is in your hands, pour

me a little. And tenderness too.

My need is great. Beauty walks so freely

and with such gentleness. Impatience puts a halter on my face

and I run away over the green fields wanting your voice, your

tenderness, but having to do with only

the sweet grasses of the fields against my body.

When I first found you I was filled with light, now the darkness grows

and it is filled with crooked things, bitter and weak, bearing my name.

Oh feed me this day, Holy Spirit, wih

the fragrance of the fields and the

freshness of the oceans which you have made,

and help me to hear and to hold in all dearness

those exacting and wonderful words of our Lord,

saying:

Follow Me.”