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Friday, 10 September 2010

food blessings

Rev Naomi started a conversation on Twitter about blessings for food. If you want to see it, the tag is #tablebless. It's a great idea for integrating spirituality with daily life, so I'm really interested in what people come up with.

I suggested the Pantheist Grace and a Pagan Grace by Isaac and Phaedra Bonewits. I also came up with a Lolcat blessing: "Hallowed be thy Noms".

Other offerings include:
  • "We thank every being that brought this food to our table. We are all a part of the web of life" (by me)
  • "Blessed be God who is our bread, may all the world be clothed and fed" (by chickpastor)
  • "Thanks for what we receive! With joy, may we give far more than we receive and bless the world." (by Rev Naomi)
  • "Rejoice in what gifts upon this table lay! Nourished here, may we go forth and feed the world." (by Rev Naomi)
  • "We give thanks for the life that sustains our life, and the web of which we are all a part." (by TrulySocial)
  • "For those who grew this food, those who made this meal, and for life that sustains us all, we give thanks!" (by Rev Naomi)
There's a collection of prayers before meals from various faith traditions at BeliefNet. Many traditions seem to have the impulse to honour where the food came from and to wish that everyone else will be fed too. For example, this Pagan prayer and this Buddhist prayer do that, and so does chickpastor's prayer (above).

Please add your ideas in the comments. Brevity is of the essence here - it needs to be easy to memorise and not make the food get cold!
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5 comments:

  1. Yewtree10 September 2010 at 18:41

    My latest effort (I seem to be going a bit Buddhist with these):

    May I be mindful as I eat,
    That food's a blessing and a treat.
    May this blessing now extend
    To all beings, on whom peace descend.

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  2. Yewtree10 September 2010 at 19:11

    Here's another:

    By life and love we bless this food
    So may all beings be renewed.

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  3. Gerry11 September 2010 at 15:14

    This is what I do with my partner (when we remember!)
    "Blessings upon this food, the creatures who have made this meal possible [insert list of as many as can think of, including elements before food goes cold] and blessings on us who eat it!"

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  4. Yewtree12 September 2010 at 18:55

    I like it - though the brevity was intended to prevent the food going cold :)

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  5. Susan Carpenter Sims13 September 2010 at 18:48

    When my kids were younger we had a tradition of simply saying together, "Thank you for this day. Thank you for this family. And thank you for this food."

    Incidentally, I have a really good book called "Art of the Inner Meal," by Donald Altman that covers different religious traditions' attitudes toward and rituals around food.

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