Last night at St. P’s, my dear friend Jack preached.  It was a very good sermon.  About how thankfulness should be a practice, a thing we do naturally and regularly.  Jack begins an intense protocol of radiation on his neck and throat on Monday.  My heart was filled with such gratitude to be there, hearing what just might be his last sermon, singing in the choir.  That is my practice.  My prayer is that all the words I have sung are what God thinks of first when he remembers me.

I remember many Thanksgivings, happily setting my table with my favorite things and serving up favorite food to dear friends and three little girls.  I remember delicious meals around my Grandmother Capshaw’s dining room table — and sometimes the table overflowed and I got to sit at the kitchen table with my cousins.  At her house, I especially remember light-as-air cloverleaf rolls and delicate cream pies with flaky crusts.  At my great-grandmother’s, Ma-ma’s, I remember cobblers and cornbread dressing coming out of her primitive kitchen.  Most of these dishes eventually found their way to Mother’s table in much-improved form from her modern kitchen.  She always remembered that my favorite pie was egg custard.  In all those kitchens, I remember helping to wash all those dishes by hand.  I am thankful for dishwashers.

I looked everywhere for pictures of Thanksgivings past.  In those days, before flashbulbs, we all moved out to the front steps or yard to take pictures, so there are no shots of our family gathered around the groaning table. The only one I could turn up was this one of me and my best beau dressed up for the 1960 Thanksgiving dance. He came home from college to escort me, a high-school senior. By then, those big flashbulbs had come in to play.

Mother always made sure that I had pretty dresses to wear for every special occasion.  Many of them she made for me on her faithful Singer Featherweight.  It still runs perfectly.  I am thankful for so many things.

I am thankful every morning when I step out of bed and put my feet into my snuggly Uggs slippers and wiggle the various parts of my body and find that most of the parts are working just fine.  And I am not a bit embarrassed to admit that today one of the things I am most thankful for is my new garage door opener.

A couple of years ago I chose “a heart full of gratitude” as my annual theme. I actually much prefer the word gratitude to thankfulness.  My heart of full of gratitude.  Happy Thanksgiving.