"Be with me, O Goddess, at the breaking of bread,
Be with m, O Goddess, at the end of my meal.
May no morsel of my body's partaking
Add to my soul's freight!"
____ Scots Gaelic grace (trans CM)
The blessing of food or the saying of 'grace' before eating is regarded as old-fashioned behavior in most households these days,
except perhaps on Thanksgiving, when it plays a traditional role.
The blessing upon our food is itself a thanksgiving to all who have participated in the preparation of our meal: the grains, the earth, the elements, the animals, the ones who have processed our food and sold it to us - everyone is involved. If we contemplate only one item of food on our table and trace it back through the steps that brought it there, the scale of our thanksgiving becomes very real - a network of cooperation that is one strand of our life.
The Gaelic blessing above seems very relevant today. With the addition of chemicals and pesticides and the genetic manipulation of the cellular structure of our food, many people are very worried about swallowing anything these days. The need to return to organic food-production methods where only the usual growing agents - air, sunlight, water and root nurture -
are allowed to influence the food we eat is now widely recognized.
Very few people wish to harm their bodies or souls by participating in immoral and disrespectful food-production methods. The same goes for foodstuffs whose gathering and production endanger other species of animals or plants or further exploit already exploited people. Our choice of food is determined by the staple items of our region and our culture, many of which are in short supply. Can we change our eating habits in order to be able to breathe a true blessing upon our table?
"Write your own grace or meditate upon silently before you eat."
[From: "The Celtic Spirit" by Caitlin Matthews]
My parents still say grace before dinner, and it feels so natural when we gather together for a meal to say grace. It's a Catholic grace, but even though I'm no longer a Christian, it feels right to say a prayer of thanks before eating. It's bad form at their house to even eat a single piece of bread before grace.
ReplyDeleteHere it is:
"Thank you, oh Lord
For these, thy gifts,
that we are about to receive
from thy bounty.
And make us ever mindful
of the needs of others.
Through Christ, our Lord.
Amen."
Echo - this is lovely - of all the christian aspects of religion I think Catholics come closest to Witches. The prayer at the beginning of this little essay I posted actually uses the word 'God' instead of 'Goddess' which I substituted. So if you wish you can still use your paretns' prayer and just make a substitution of a word here and there to fit your religion.
ReplyDeleteSobeit