This is surely the most difficult Thanksgiving of my 83 years of spinning around the sun. 

“The wars they linger on/The darkness overcomes/
We need not stars but sun/Break in O Coming One/ Sometimes we cannot tell/That You will make all well.” Ordinary Time, “All Shall Be Well.”

One shudders and grieves and rages and fears about what is in store for America and the Earth and other countries when an elected antichrist and serial liar and man-committed-to-Project-2025 takes over the reins of government.  Already, many of the choices for cabinet positions are scarier than a whole year of Halloweens.

To find the reasons for our thanks, we have to dig deep and “seek the deepness”—as Julian of Norwich puts it.  She writes:

Be a gardener,
dig and ditch,
toil and sweat,
and turn the earth upside down
and seek the deepness
and water the plants in time.

Continue this labor and make sweet floods to run
and noble and abundant fruits to spring

So let us make a prayer of what it is we are digging for when we “dig and ditch” into our souls to say “Thanks” on this Thanksgiving Day, 2024.  “This is the holiest prayer—the loving prayer of thanksgiving,” Julian reminds us.

Hildegard of Bingen, “Cultivating the Cosmic Tree,” Scivias.

Let us give thanks for …

Our existence.

The “miracle of our existence.” (Rilke)

Isness—“Isness is God.” (Meister Eckhart)

Creation.  The universe. The cosmos.  All that is and all that brought us here, “us” being the Milky Way, our sun, our moon, our Mother Earth, our soil, our waters, our rivers, lakes, oceans, waterfalls.  And the Beauty thereof.

For all the Original Blessings over 13.8 billion years that preceded human existence and persist to this day.

For all the non-two legged creatures, each of whom, Thomas Merton calls “saints.”

And that includes rocks and trees, forests and fields, flowers, animals, fish, birds—with their music—reptiles, insects, butterflies, bees, wolves, giraffes, elephants, dolphins, whales, chimpanzees, dogs, cats, horses.  The 4-legged and winged ones, the slithering and finned ones.  All  original blessings.

A Thanksgiving meditation based on Julian’s vision of the hazelnut. You’re invited to hold a small object the size of a hazelnut while taking part. Salem Baptist Church.

And our human ancestors who have preceded us and instructed us and made our existence possible

May we humans, so late on the scene, honor and respect and reverence our time and place in creation and evolution, 13.8 billions years in the making. 

May we also live up to being Original Blessings ourselves who bring goodness into the holy circle of existence, the holy circle called “very good” on the first page of the Bible when humans also came aboard.

Julian tells us that Thanksgiving leads to action when she says, Charged with the quality of reverence and loving awe, we turn ourselves with all our might toward the actions” to which we are guided. 

Amen.


Adapted from Matthew Fox, Julian of Norwich: Wisdom in a Time of Pandemic—and Beyond, pp. 101f., 20-33.

See Fox, Original Blessing: A Primer in Creation Spirituality.

And Fox, Christian Mystics: 365 Readings and Meditations.

And Fox, The Tao of Thomas Aquinas: Fierce Wisdom for Hard Times, pp. 41-52.

Banner Image: The biosphere of Planet Earth: On land, vegetation appears on a scale from brown (low vegetation) to dark green (lots of vegetation); at the ocean surface, phytoplankton are indicated on a scale from purple (low) to yellow (high). This visualization was created with data from satellites including SeaWiFS, and instruments including the NASA/NOAA Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite and the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer. Wikimedia Commons.


Queries for Contemplation

Thomas Aquinas defines religion as “supreme thankfulness or gratitude.”  What are you thankful for this Thanksgiving?  Will you “turn your reverence and loving awe to action” as Julian proposes?  What kind?


Recommended Reading

Julian of Norwich: Wisdom in a Time of Pandemic–and Beyond

Julian of Norwich lived through the dreadful bubonic plague that killed close to 50% of Europeans. Being an anchoress, she ‘sheltered in place’ and developed a deep wisdom that she shared in her book, Showings, which was the first book in English by a woman. A theologian way ahead of her time, Julian develops a feminist understanding of God as mother at the heart of nature’s goodness. Fox shares her teachings in this powerful and timely and inspiring book.
“What an utterly magnificent book. The work of Julian of Norwich, lovingly supported by the genius of Matthew Fox, is a roadmap into the heart of the eco-spiritual truth that all life breathes together.”  –Caroline Myss
Now also available as an audiobook HERE.

Original Blessing: A Primer in Creation Spirituality

Matthew Fox lays out a whole new direction for Christianity—a direction that is in fact very ancient and very grounded in Jewish thinking (the fact that Jesus was a Jew is often neglected by Christian theology): the Four Paths of Creation Spirituality, the Vias Positiva, Negativa, Creativa and Transformativa in an extended and deeply developed way.
Original Blessing makes available to the Christian world and to the human community a radical cure for all dark and derogatory views of the natural world wherever these may have originated.” –Thomas Berry, author, The Dream of the Earth; The Great Work; co-author, The Universe Story

Christian Mystics: 365 Readings & Meditations

As Matthew Fox notes, when an aging Albert Einstein was asked if he had any regrets, he replied, “I wish I had read more of the mystics earlier in my life.” The 365 writings in Christian Mystics represent a wide-ranging sampling of these readings for modern-day seekers of all faiths — or no faith. The visionaries quoted range from Julian of Norwich to Martin Luther King, Jr., from Thomas Merton to Dorothee Soelle and Thomas Berry.
“Our world is in crisis, and we need road maps that can ground us in wisdom, inspire us to action, and help us gather our talents in service of compassion and justice. This revolutionary book does just that. Matthew Fox takes some of the most profound spiritual teachings of the West and translates them into practical daily mediations. Study and practice these teachings. Take what’s in this book and teach it to the youth because the new generation cannot afford to suffer the spirit and ethical illiteracy of the past.” — Adam Bucko, spiritual activist and co-founder of the Reciprocity Foundation for Homeless Youth.

The Tao of Thomas Aquinas: Fierce Wisdom for Hard Times

A stunning spiritual handbook drawn from the substantive teachings of Aquinas’ mystical/prophetic genius, offering a sublime roadmap for spirituality and action.
Foreword by Ilia Delio.
“What a wonderful book!  Only Matt Fox could bring to life the wisdom and brilliance of Aquinas with so much creativity. The Tao of Thomas Aquinas is a masterpiece.”
–Caroline Myss, author of Anatomy of the Spirit


Responses are welcomed. To add your comment, please click HERE or scroll to the bottom of the page.

Share this meditation

Facebook
Twitter
Email

Daily Meditations with Matthew Fox is made possible through the generosity of donors. Please consider making a tax-deductible donation

Search Meditations

Categories

Categories

Archives

Archives

Receive our daily meditations

13 thoughts on “A Prayer on Thanksgiving Day, 2024, a la Julian of Norwich”

  1. “Most Thankful”

    After a near death experience and extensive, extended hospitalization at the end of 2023 [9 weeks including 8 days intubated and 8 months of outpatient recovery], I am thankful to be breathing and living mechanically ‘unaided’ and to be alive in God’s presence, grandeur and love in 2024. I am most thankful to once again be cognitively able to contemplate and write from my soul centre. Many that suffer from ‘long Covid’ are unable to do so i.e. maintain concentration (due to ‘brain fog’), and suffer many other ailments, and we pray for them, their caregivers and medical researchers for God’s healing power. In the Trinity and the power of the Mystery we place our love and trust forever more. Amen. – BB. —–

    PS Whether the ‘of the world’ situation is good, bad or ugly in 2025, I am just joyful to be alive and will endeavour to ‘live faithfully in the moment’ that Jesus promises of His Kingdom that is ‘not of the world’.

  2. Rev. Dr. David Spence

    Thank you for the Thanksgiving Prayer — USA heartfelt version. Perhaps, in addition, our thinking and praying needs to reacquaint ourselves with being Christian Heathens…..and accepting the Sacred Quaternity as essential as the Holy Trinity. Blessed Be the Ways of Wonder and Wisdom in the Spirit of “Namwayut” — a Canadien heartfult version.

  3. Thank you for this beautiful and insightful post. While I pause to wonder what so many will be expressing in Thanksgiving 2025 for now I wish to be grateful for so many things especially for you Rev. Matthew Fox. Your amazing work continues to brighten my life and provides me with hope every day.

  4. Blessings of LOVE~PEACE~JUSTICE~HEALING~TRANSFORMATION~CREATIVITY~BEAUTY~JOY~
    COMPASSION~LOVING DIVERSE ONENESS… to All Our Sisters and Brothers around the world, including our Beautiful Sacred Mother Earth! – Amen

  5. Kenneth Larry Matheny

    Your Thanksgiving Day meditation speaks to the grief and pain I’ve been experiencing since Election Day. I have been close to despair, but your daily meditations keep hope alive. Thank you so much!

  6. I am deeply thankful today for all the breathtakingly beautiful creatures that have yet not become extinct on our planet, for the wandering waterways, the bizarre rock formations, and the spirit of God that surely bursts forth from people I am yet to know. I offer a poem in honor of the wild creature who lives with us–our cat, Malia: Malia Contemplates Snow.

    Malia contemplates snow
    snow white on black junipers
    small, light, socially distanced flakes of snow
    falling
    He believes
    that if he were outside the window screen
    behind which he sits contemplating
    he would be
    invisible
    He has no idea how deep the snow is
    He believes he would be
    invisible
    because he too is only black and white
    except for that errant
    inexcusable and mysterious
    patch of interloping brown
    somewhere around his left haunch
    a strange thing, he believes,
    perhaps given him by his city-cat father
    he never met
    What he does not know
    or so I think
    is that it’s not the camouflage
    of white and black
    in a black and white landscape
    that would hide him
    if he jumped through the second-story screen
    It’s that he would
    sink deeply into the still-fluffy snow
    and disappear for some time
    until shock and cold
    made him squirm
    and do the Macarena
    and contemplate
    how much nicer it was
    to sit contemplating the nature of snow
    inside the bedroom

  7. Maybe the mindless soulless anti Christ is our final wake up call – a stark/dark revelation – a timely challenge for the whole world – a now or never warning about what is to come if we don’t stop doing to others what we would not have done to ourselves – despoiling Mother Earth with pernicious evolving weapon systems – slaughtering women, children and brave men – leaving ashes and rubble for every new born Earth child….. urging tax payers to cover the costs of humanitarian aid for victims of hooded global elites worshipping the Golden Calf… And still I pray …. sometimes for ‘God’ ……………

  8. I am thankful to God that I have beloved family. A roof over my head. Heat. Hot water, Food. Sight (but sadly, not hearing), taste and touch and smell. The ability to walk (though with a cane), because mobility is precious. Ability to think and talk and write and (hopefully) make sense.

    Thankful for the astonishing beauty of the universe, and the beauty of contemplation. Grateful to God for the majestic Mystical Revelation that unfolded within me, years ago, and the gift of deepening and expanding knowledge, over many years, from studying texts and lessons of Mysticism.
    Grateful for the ability to share it, here, for three years, in Matthew’s marvelous corner of the universe. Grateful to Matthew for making this space, where mysticism can hang out and unfold and soar.
    Grateful to God, for being God — truly awe-inspiring.

  9. I am grateful to Matthew and to all the teachers who inspire us and all who are praying and working toward the beloved community, where there will be peace and justice at last. I am grateful for all the simple things so many of us take for granted, health, mobility, use of the senses, and enough shelter and food—because so many in the world do not have even the basics.

  10. https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/mlk-our-lives-begin-to-end/
    For most of today, I have had this song going through my head:
    “Guide my feet while I run this race”
    which can be found on Seasons of the Spirit CD Volume 2 by Wood Lake Publishing. (traditional spiritual)
    I came home from Thanksgiving dinner at my friends’ house and went on an internet search for the song.
    I came upon this sermon
    https://www.facebook.com/RevDrBarber/videos/166180814527446/
    by Rev. Dr. William J. Barber
    and decided to listen to all 48 minutes. So glad that I did!
    Then I came upon this recording:
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ccd2SVOP9Aw
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0hADxUAZE7E

Leave a Comment

To help moderate the volume of responses, the Comment field is limited to 1500 characters (roughly 300 words), with one comment per person per day.

Please keep your comments focused on the topic of the day's Meditation.

As always, we look forward to your comments!!
The Daily Meditation Team

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Join us in meditation that supports your compassionate action

Receive Matthew Fox's Daily Meditation by subscribing below: