At any rate I love the way "thank you" is said in other languages: merci, danke schön, gracias, and many more. My favorite is the Lakota "pilamaya". We humans have much to be thankful for and many errors to correct - here I am thinking of how we have screwed up our planet, but today I am thankful we still have a planet...
Yesterday when I was grabbing some last minute groceries at the Shop Wrong along with throngs of obese/overweight others filling cartloads of crappy processed food the word GLUTTONY came to mind. Abhorrent in light of pockets of famine worldwide. But my family will cook our organic free range turkey with all sides prepared from equally organic veggies and breads (not to mention gravy made with an imported beer first brewed in the 13th century at a European monastery), not our batch, though..) are only different by degree...snobbish foodies perhaps but all yearning for taste and that ense of fullness.
But breaking bread with family annd friends is a sacred act...in many religions, many social settings. As this excerpt from a Catholic blog states:
"Sharing a meal: That’s how so many people of faith know and experience God. It has been that way for thousands of years. We come together as people of faith and we tell stories and recall history; we ritualize and make sacred our food and drink. We make a meal the fullest and most eloquent encounter with Divinity. We feast on, and are nourished by, God’s love. There doesn’t have to be a lot of theology around it. The philosophical constructs and intellectual categories used to explain how a meal can be holy are almost pointless. For most of us, it is crystal clear. All one needs to do is watch a young couple in love sharing a romantic dinner, or see an elderly couple gaze at each other across the table at their anniversary and you will know you are on holy ground. Observe a family enjoying a child’s birthday celebration at a local pizza parlor; hear the laughter and see the smiles and you sense something good, something spiritual about it all. More often than we realize, our meals are encounters with God. The act of eating and sustaining our bodies cannot be separated from our spirits. The biblical authors knew this well and constantly remind us that our meals are spiritual. Our food and drink have consequences."
All our meals are spiritual...indeed with the correct perspective all our life is sacred. This feeling of spiritual rightness is multiplied manifold when more of us gather together for a holiday meal.
