Blabberings

Dear Father in Heaven, 

Thank you for mamas and daddies.

Thank you for little boys and little girls.

Thank you for sunbeams and raindrops. 

Thank you for a taste of something salty to chase the sweet. 

Thank you that the leaves change colors and fall off the trees and that they grow back again, green and shiny. 

Thank you for percussion and woodwind and brass, for the sweet music they make together, for the melody and the harmony.

Thank you for villages, communities, casseroles.

Thank you for folks who work in the kitchen and those who work the front counter, for folks who come early and those who stay late. 

Thank you for the smart ones who think they’re not funny and the funny ones who think they’re not smart.  

Thank you for integrated preschool classes, full of special friends and typical kids. 

Thank you for Pentecostals and Primitive Baptists. 

Thank you for red, brown, yellow, black, and white. 

Thank you for righties and lefties. 

Thank you for Democrats and Republicans, that each keeps the other from their own Too Much. 

Thank you for seesaws and swing sets. 

Thank you for the famines, so we can appreciate the feasts. Forgive us when we whine about overeating. 

Thank you for the powder white sand of the Gulf of Mexico and the cool, red dirt of the Deep South, for seaweed and pine straw, for scuttling hermit crabs and croaking tree frogs, for grouper and catfish.

Thank you for high tide and low, for ebb and flow, for flora and fauna. 

Thank you for hard copy books and e-readers. 

Thank you for accountants and plumbers, for electricians and architects, for doctors, lawyers, Indian chiefs. 

Thank you that azaleas and dogwoods bloom in their season. Forgive us when we whine about sneezes and itchy eyes. Thank you for antihistamines. 

Thank you for the old men who ignore the old women who complain about being ignored by the old men. 

Thank you for AC units and hot water heaters. 

Thank you for peas and cornbread, for biscuits and gravy, for peanut butter and jelly.

Thank you for the spiders that make the webs to catch the bugs, for vacuum cleaners that battle the webs, and for the itsy bitsy spider who goes up the spout again. 

Thank you for flat irons for curly-haired girls and curling irons for straight-haired girls. 

Thank you for those who iron blue jeans and tee shirts and for those who prefer a dryer toss.

Thank you for the Iron Bowl. 

Thank you for fat, squishy newborn hands and old, wrinkly wisened ones.

Thank you for deep and wide, for joy, joy, joy, joy, for peace like a river.

Thank you for each new day, for yet another chance, for 360 degrees, for the Circle that remains unbroken. 

Thank you for grace. 

And for the gifts we so abundantly receive,

Amen.