I recently began saying grace before I eat, alone and with friends. Until now, I have always rejected the idea of giving thanks, a hangover from my own uncertainty of Christianity and ambiguous atheism – the thought of thanking a God for a meal to me seemed absurd.
For what reason? To what end? Wondering what the future pay-off would be distracted me totally from the presence of the prize in front of me: a plate of food, a warm room, and the company of others.
At first I ask if someone might like to say it, and received a pretty resounding silence (which should be expected since I put everyone on the spot). Initiating the idea and immediately relinquishing responsibility is a trait I don’t associate with myself. This ultra-polite tactic got swotted away, that was my lesson. At the next meal we cook together, once everyone has loaded their plates from the buffet-style spread we have become accustomed to, the thought comes to again, except more energetically this time. I insist on joining hands. We tentatively do so, I have a tight squeeze on one side and a loose clasp on the other, but I can feel them and that’s all that matters. The initial self-consciousness feeds a (unusual) insecurity of being watched, so I close my eyes or get everyoe else to close theirs.
The feeling immediately after speaking and before eating is one of the warmest I can recount. Communing food takes on a deeper significance. It’s a reset button and a moment of rare tenderness between disparate bodies.
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We’re thankful to each other for being here, to share another meal, another drink, another conversation.
We’re thankful to each other for taking time out of our day to cook these dishes with our ingredients, energy and love.
We’re thankful to each other for sharing and preparing our abundance and scrubbing, peeling, grating, slicing it together.
We’re thankful to workers who have sowed, planted, watered, harvested, washed, weighed, packed, loaded, driven, unloaded, checked off, priced, shelved, scanned and bagged our foods. Their selflessness and solidarity keeps food on our table and in our stomachs. We do not take their labour for granted.
We’re thankful to landworkers who care for our soils, who aerate, compost, mulch, revitalise the very medium that all plants need to grow. Their dedication, attention and action year on year keeps food on our table and in our stomachs. We do not take their knowledge for granted.
We’re thankful to those more-than-human beings who balance the ecology and create the unique conditions for both humans and edible plants to co-exist. Animals, insects, volunteer plants, trees, fungi, bacteria, wild yeasts and other microbial forms keep food on our table and in our stomachs. We do not take their existence for granted.
We’re thankful.