creating ritual for your community
"Saying grace" has always been a part of the mealtime ritual in my family. Most often spoken aloud by a member of the family, though sometimes silently and individually offered up to God, a blessing of the meal is almost always said before we eat. In my faith tradition, a prayer of thanksgiving is an important act of gratitude and humility and is often performed aloud in the context of a group. The meal blessing ritual offers us a few moments to remove ourselves from the ordinariness of reality and puts us in communication with a divine existence. Through this ritual, we acknowledge and demonstrate a relationship with God's supernatural being and a sacred reality. This sacred reality is transcendent and is set apart from our immediate reality. The profane reality is where we non-transcendent humans experience life and is the lens through which we perceive our existence. Rituals are manifestations of the juxtaposition of the sacred and profane. Rituals act as a bridge of communication between these two realities (Pedregal, p. 2).
For me, blessing the meal is a brief moment to quiet the self and express gratitude towards God. I have fallen out of the ritual of saying a blessing when I host people at my home for a meal. One reason is that many of my friends, including some of my closest friends, are not religious or their beliefs are not aligned with my Christian beliefs. I often choose to omit the blessing when I know the present company has not chosen to identify with my particular faith belief. I am an empathetic person and do not want to make any guests feel uncomfortable in my home.
Lately I have begun to reconsider the intentional omission of grace. Neglecting the prayer at the beginning of meal feels like skipping over a very important step in the fellowship time around the table. It is for this reason that I desired to find a prayer that was simple, succinctly expressed my gratitude for the great things God has provided, and was neutral enough (or not "too preachy") that it would not offend non-believers. I researched many different prayers from various world faiths that would suit my purpose and found a traditional Unitarian Universalist prayer that I really liked (Favorite UU Graces, 2010). I decided to add onto it to make it more personal and meaningful. I blessed a meal at my house recently for a small group of close friends. I think we all felt it added warmth to the fellowship table. I plan on using the following prayer as my default meal blessing for future gatherings around the table.
For me, blessing the meal is a brief moment to quiet the self and express gratitude towards God. I have fallen out of the ritual of saying a blessing when I host people at my home for a meal. One reason is that many of my friends, including some of my closest friends, are not religious or their beliefs are not aligned with my Christian beliefs. I often choose to omit the blessing when I know the present company has not chosen to identify with my particular faith belief. I am an empathetic person and do not want to make any guests feel uncomfortable in my home.
Lately I have begun to reconsider the intentional omission of grace. Neglecting the prayer at the beginning of meal feels like skipping over a very important step in the fellowship time around the table. It is for this reason that I desired to find a prayer that was simple, succinctly expressed my gratitude for the great things God has provided, and was neutral enough (or not "too preachy") that it would not offend non-believers. I researched many different prayers from various world faiths that would suit my purpose and found a traditional Unitarian Universalist prayer that I really liked (Favorite UU Graces, 2010). I decided to add onto it to make it more personal and meaningful. I blessed a meal at my house recently for a small group of close friends. I think we all felt it added warmth to the fellowship table. I plan on using the following prayer as my default meal blessing for future gatherings around the table.
It is a blessing to be.
It is a blessing to be here.
It is a blessing to be here now.
It is a blessing to be here now together.
It is a blessing to be nourished.
It is a blessing to be nourished by this food.
It is a blessing to be nourished by this friendship.
It is a blessing to be nourished by the Spirit.
Our souls are nourished and we are blessed. Amen.
REFERENCES
Favorite UU Table Graces. (2010). Retrieved July 8, 2014, from http://www.uua.org/documents/washingtonoffice/ethicaleating/404040_favorite_uu_table_graces.pdf
Pedregal, A. (n.d.). The Ritual as a Process. Retrieved July 8, 2014, from http://www.dip-alicante.es/hipokrates/hipokrates_i/pdf/ing/435i.pdf
It is a blessing to be here.
It is a blessing to be here now.
It is a blessing to be here now together.
It is a blessing to be nourished.
It is a blessing to be nourished by this food.
It is a blessing to be nourished by this friendship.
It is a blessing to be nourished by the Spirit.
Our souls are nourished and we are blessed. Amen.
REFERENCES
Favorite UU Table Graces. (2010). Retrieved July 8, 2014, from http://www.uua.org/documents/washingtonoffice/ethicaleating/404040_favorite_uu_table_graces.pdf
Pedregal, A. (n.d.). The Ritual as a Process. Retrieved July 8, 2014, from http://www.dip-alicante.es/hipokrates/hipokrates_i/pdf/ing/435i.pdf