“The light shines in the darkness,
and the darkness has not overcome it.”
John 1: 5 (ESV)

“Listen
with the night falling we are saying thank you . . .
thank you we are saying and waving
dark though it is”
W. S. Merwin *

Wednesday morning, November 27, 2019, friends gathered at the City Light Community Ministries Mission for a thanks-giving breakfast, a joyful time of fellowship, song, and breakfast casseroles, giving and receiving.

“Give thanks with a grateful heart
Give thanks to the Holy One
Give thanks because He’s given Jesus Christ, His Son”
Don Moen **

“But whoever would be great among you
must be your servant.”
Matthew 20: 26 (ESV)

“And now let the weak say, ‘I am strong’
Let the poor say, ‘I am rich
Because of what the Lord has done for us'”
Don Moen **

“in the faces of the officials and the rich
and of all who will never change
we go on saying thank you thank you”
W. S. Merwin *

“For I was hungry and you gave me food;
I was thirsty and you gave me drink;
I was a stranger and you made me welcome;
naked and you clothed me, sick and you visited me,
in prison and you came to see me.”
Matthew 25: 35-37 (The Jerusalem Bible)

“Lord, make me an instrument of your peace:
where there is hatred, let me sow love;
where there is injury, pardon;
where there is doubt, faith;
where there is despair, hope:
where there is darkness, light;
where there is sadness, joy.”
Saint Francis ***

“Look at the birds in the sky.
They do not sow or reap or gather into barns;
yet your heavenly Father feeds them.
Are you not worth much more than they are?”
Matthew 6: 26-27 (The Jerusalem Bible)

 

Works Cited

* Merwin, W. S. “Thanks.” The Rain in the Trees: Poems, Alfred A. Knopf, 1988, p. 46.

** Moen, Don. “Give Thanks.” Give Thanks (debut album), July 1986.

*** Saint Francis. Stanza One of the “Peace Prayer of Saint Francis.” Loyola Press, A Jesuit Ministry, 2017.