Grace and Gratitude

We did this thing when I was a kid when we sat down to eat as a family where we would hold hands, close our eyes and thank God for our food before we ate.

I never completely understood why and I was never completely comfortable doing it but clearly made an impact on me for me to be telling you about it now.

This was a practise recommended in the Bible. 

Regardless of whether you believe in a God or not for a book to survive as long as it has is pretty mind blowing and it is clearly packed with wisdom. The thing about wisdom is that it passed down practises and principles from generation to generation often without us ever consciously thinking about it.

Gratitude is one of those things.

The utility of gratitude is well documented. A daily gratitude makes us happier, that’s a fact. 

Clearly this is something we have known for thousands of years without having the scientific evidence for it that we now have. 

It make sense that meal times and verbal thanks would have been a better practise with iPhones, pen and paper  and even the ability to read likely being in short supply in biblical times. 

So what is there to be grateful for at meal times? 

The more I thought about that the more I realised that it was or could be the door to creating a better world. 

Starting with your world and then expanding to the whole world  

I’m grateful for the company I eat with, the person who did the cooking, the money to pay for it or rather the people that gave me the money to pay for it, to the people that helped me attain the skill and knowledge to help the people that gave me the money... follow this far enough and you’ll reach everyone in the world. 

Then I started looking at the individual foods on my plate. 

A few thousand years ago it might have been, who do I want to get my money? 

I like John, he pays his fishermen well, he’s nice to his kids. 

I don’t like James, pays his fishermen poorly, hits his kids and he smells like twigglets and wee. 

I’ll buy my fish from John. 

It’s harder today for sure but at every meal time we demonstrate our values. 

If you’re feeding yourself and your kids processed food you ARE showing what you value. 

If you are eating barn raised animals you ARE showing what you value. 

If you eat at your desk, eat on the go, what ever you are doing with food you are telling your brain 🧠 and those around you and the whole world what is important to you and you are in how ever small a way, creating the whole world  

We are each and our world IS a demonstration of what we most value. 

I won’t say in what way, that not up to me, I know nothing about you or your circumstances but our world only gets better and THE world only gets better when we take responsibility for what’s on our plate. What we most value. 

Grace — Gratitude — Values — Voting — Our world — The world