Happy Thanksgiving 2025!!

  Happy Thanksgiving 2025!! 

a few reflections I put together after a family hike this summer

A Morning Blessing 

Today is new, O God.
Sometimes life flashes before me, and I wake to the gift that this day is.
I realize—I get to be here.
I get to be in the chores, in the errands,
in the ordinary unfolding of hours.

And I notice—
the colors, the air,
the sheer grace of being alive.
“This is the day that the Lord has made.”
If You made this day,
if you intended me to wake up into it,
then there is purpose already here.

Thank You for the gift of this new day—
for bringing me safely through the night,
for bringing us safely to this moment.
Help me not take this day,
these people,
this life for granted.

“Oh, Earth, you are too wonderful for anybody to realize you.
Do any human beings ever realize life while they live it—every, every minute?”
Teach me to realize it, Lord.
Even for a breath. Even for just a second.

I’ve got choices ahead of me:
to worry, to fear, to hesitate, to regret.
But there is also this other way—
to rejoice, to trust,
to believe that love is holding my hand.

So I lift my eyes and settle my soul.
This day is yours.
And so am I.
And the only faithful response to such a gift
is gratitude spilling over.

Cheers from Emily (52), Jason (54), Anna (23), and Taylor (20)

Kid Update: Taylor is now a junior at UC Santa Cruz, majoring in chemistry and loving life by the coast. Anna graduated from Scripps College in May and has since moved to Anchorage, Alaska, for a two-year NOAA fellowship, where she’s helping design a salmon monitoring project.