Saying grace–in other words, praying before a meal–is an important ritual in my family’s mealtimes. As children, we would always dread the moment, because my father would call on me or my brother or my sister to say the blessing. There is no pressure–especially at larger family gatherings with generation upon generation of family members gathered–greater than standing in a circle, holding hands, all eyes closed, the room still with expectation, everyone waiting for you to say something meaningful to God.
Then I came to college. College, where mealtime means gathering with your friends in the dining hall. No one stops to say a prayer before downing their burrito or pizza, and if you stop and bow your head, you are going to get weird looks. Not that I was embraced to say grace. Instead, in the rush and excitement of college, it pretty much just slipped my mind.
Then, second semester of my freshman year, I took a class in Buddhism. We read Thicht Naht Hanh’s Peace is Every Step. It’s a beautiful book, and one of the things that hit me as I read it was in the passage where he talked about food. An important practice of his, he wrote, was to pause before eating and meditate on the food in front of him–where it came from, how it grew, who worked to grow it.
This was a beautiful thought for me. Too often, we are in a rush or too busy socializing to consider the miracle that our food is. Every plant somehow came to life from a tiny seed, and transformed the power of sunlight into energy to grow. Every animal grew and breathed air and was utterly alive, seeing and feeling and existing. Every time we eat, we are becoming a part of that cyclical process.
So whether you believe that it was God who created this world and the food before you or not, try to take the time to pause before eating. Give thanks to the Divine, to the earth, or just to photosynthesis. Value the fact that you have food to eat. Fully appreciate how lucky you are, and what a gift life is. It doesn’t have to involve saying words or holding hands. Just a simple pause will do.
In our busy, social world, it is important to remember all we have.
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[…] I have certain spiritual practices I have picked up over the years. Meditating every morning (thank you, Geshe Dakpa Topgyal, my Buddhist monk spiritual teacher from the Charleston Tibetan Society). Writing, before bed every night, a list of ten things I am thankful for on the whiteboard beside my bed (an idea given to my by my yoga therapist aunt and later echoed by my pastor at my UU church). Saying grace–as I talked about in another blog post here. […]