A Thanksgiving Day Reflection
+Brian Ernest Brown, CWC
Thanksgiving has always been a quiet teacher for me. It slows my hurried spirit and invites me to look, really look, at the world around me, not just with appreciation, but with honesty. Gratitude, I’ve learned, isn’t simply naming blessings; it is also confessing the ways we’ve misused them and allowing grace to reshape the way we live.
This morning, as I sat with my cinnamon and chia and opened the Book of Common Prayer, I found myself drawn again to the Thanksgiving litany that begins,
“Almighty God, giver of all good things…”
It is a prayer I have prayed countless times, but today it landed differently, with the weight of a year filled with both tenderness and tension, hope and heaviness.
“We thank you for the natural majesty and beauty of this land.
They restore us, though we often destroy them. Heal us.”
I thought of the Ozark hills that have cradled so much of my life, the Queen City, Mutton Hollow, Shepherd of the Hills, Bear Mountain, and the Boston Mountains of Northwest Arkansas, quiet mornings, slow sunsets through autumn branches. Creation has always been my sanctuary, my teacher, my quiet cathedral. And yet, as the prayer says, we have not always treated this sacred gift with reverence. On this Thanksgiving Day, I felt a renewed longing for God’s healing, not just for the land, but for our relationship with it.
“We thank you for the great resources of this nation.
They make us rich, though we often exploit them. Forgive us.”
The prayer moved me inward here. We live in a land of abundance, far more than most of the world can imagine. Yet we too often refuse to share that abundance with justice or humility. I found myself whispering that line, forgive us, with a sense of both personal and national confession. Gratitude means acknowledging where we have failed to be stewards of what we’ve been given.
“We thank you for the men and women who have made this country strong.
They are models for us, though we often fall short of them. Inspire us.”
Many names came to mind, teachers, mentors, saints I’ve known, clergy who shaped me, ordinary men and women whose quiet strength never made headlines but strengthened the world just the same. Their example forms a kind of moral backbone for us. But I know how often we fall short of that courage and integrity. And so again, I prayed: Inspire us. Make us better. Make me better.
“We thank you for the torch of liberty which has been lit in this land.
It has drawn people from every nation, though we have often hidden from its light. Enlighten us.”
That line struck me with prophetic force. Freedom is a beautiful word but also a fragile one. In recent years, we have seen just how easily its light can dim under fear, division, and self-interest. Today I prayed not only for the preservation of liberty, but for the courage to live into it, honestly, generously, and for the common good.
“We thank you for the faith we have inherited in all its rich variety.
It sustains our life, though we have been faithless again and again. Renew us.”
This line felt personal. My faith, formed in the Church, shaped by the Red Letters of Christ and His Gospel, tested in suffering, renewed by the Sacraments, has been the anchor of my life. But I, too, have been faithless at times, distracted, weary, arrogant, forgetful. And so I asked God for renewal, for fresh grace, for a rekindled fire of devotion.
After praying through the litany, I sat quietly and let the final petition rest on me:
“Help us, O Lord, to finish the good work here begun.
Strengthen our efforts to blot out ignorance and prejudice,
and to abolish poverty and crime.
And hasten the day when all our people,
with many voices in one united chorus,
will glorify your holy Name. Amen.”
On this Thanksgiving Day, that feels like both a prayer and a charge. A prayer because we cannot finish the work alone, we need God’s mercy, guidance, and strength. A charge because gratitude must lead to action. If we are truly thankful, then we must become agents of mercy, justice, and compassion in a world that hungers for all three.
So today, I give thanks, not in a sentimental way, but in a way that names the truth:
the beauty we did not create,
the resources we did not earn,
the freedoms we must protect,
the faith we must nurture,
and the work we must continue.
May God heal us, forgive us, inspire us, enlighten us, and renew us. And may this Thanksgiving be not only a day of gratitude, but a beginning, again, of faithful living.
Amen.