“Praise and thanksgiving, Father we offer, for all things living you have made good”
Hymn by Albert F.Bayly
Father at the start of a new Christian year we offer our thanksgiving for all the mercies we have received over the past years.
Despite the snow and difficult traveling conditions for many in Canada and the USA, we offer you our praise and thanksgiving that we celebrate with our families and friends.
Because of our increased awareness of the use of rape as a weapon of war, we offer our thanks and praise for the work of doctors such as Denis Mukwege, from the Democratic Republic of Congo, honored by the European Union with the Sakharov Prize For Freedom of Thought, for his work with victims of sexual assault.
Despite ebola still being out of control in Guinea, West Africa, we give our praise and thanksgiving for the news that a vaccine is “promising” and may soon be in use.
Because of the devastating death of cricketer Philip Hughes in Sidney, Australia, we realize that we take for granted the pleasure we give and receive from sports and games and offer our praise and thanksgiving.
Despite the reports of 37 deaths in two separate Chinese coal mines following explosions, we give our thanks and praise that increasingly non-fossil fuels such as bottle lights are used more widely in Bangladesh.
Because we need to know how best to live at one with our world we give our thanks and praise that inner and outer space are increasingly explored with the news that links in the brain affecting Alzheimer’s are being revealed and an exploratory lander, Philae, now rests on a comet.
Despite the news that the Giant St Helena Earwig, found only on the one small island in the Atlantic Ocean, has been declared extinct we give praise and thanksgiving for the reassessment of museum and library collections, confirming a horned dinosaur in Canada and Utah, USA and revealing a first folio Shakespeare in France. We confess our complicity in changing our world. May we have the grace to save, conserve and celebrate all that is now living so that future generations are able to celebrate and offer thanksgiving in a fully functioning ecosystem.
Father, there is so much we do not know or understand about ourselves and our world. We are like children opening our presents and finding the wrapping is as interesting as the contents. We offer our praise and thanksgiving for the gifts of curiosity and imagination.
Take us into Advent and a new year with all our wonder, delight, and creativity intact, as we offer praise and thanksgiving.
Give us thankful and grateful hearts, Lord we pray. Amen.
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