We Pause to Celebrate Feasts

Life passes very quickly and we are happy to celebrate feasts like Thanksgiving and Christmas with family and friends. Some of us pray at a house of worship. The word Eucharist means giving thanks. We count our abundant blessings and try to be blessings for others. At home, food preparations are made. Tables are decorated. Delicious food is set before us, we pray grace, remember those present, those who cannot be at the table, those who are poor and then enjoy the food and community with words spoken and unspoken. At Christmas gifts are exchanged remembering God's gifts to us.

How many of us really reflect deeply on the sacred Table of Creation prepared and set before us and our responsibility to present and future generations? On our Journey into the Future we can draw a zest for life from not only our own spiritual treasures, but from wherever truth, wisdom and compassion can be found that respects the integrity of Creation and its Sacred Source. One such legacy can be found in the deep wisdom of Chief Seattle in 1854 in his reply to the United States, eager to buy land from the Indians. His words powerfully challenge us today:

"Every part of this earth is sacred to my people. Every shining pine needle, every sandy shore, every mist in the dark woods, every meadow, every humming insect. We know the sap which courses through our veins. We are part of the earth and it is part of us. The perfumed flowers are our sisters. The bear, the deer, the great eagle, these are our brothers. The rocky crests, the juices in the meadow, the body heat of the pony, and man, all belong to the same family...Will you teach your children what we have taught our children? That the earth is our mother? What befalls the earth befalls all the sons of the earth. This we know: the earth does not belong to man, man belongs to the earth. All things are connected like the blood that unites us all. Man did not weave the web of life, he is merely a strand in it. Whatever he does to the web, he does to himself. One thing we know: our God is also your God. The earth is precious to him and to harm the earth is to heap contempt on its creator...We love this earth as a newborn loves its mother's heartbeat. So, if we sell you our land, love it as we have loved it. Care for it as we have cared for it. Hold in your mind the memory of the land as it is when you receive it. Preserve the land for all children and love it as God loves all."