BEN Thanksgiving Special 2011

Bishop Mark MacDonald, the National Indigenous Bishop of the Anglican Church of Canada singing 'Amazing Grace" in Ojibway (Bishop MacDonald was my priest in Portland, Oregon 1989 - Pat Byington, BEN Publisher)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bbVsePTyRCk

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The Country Music Video by Alabama "Pass It On Down"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6yWfZ5fj7aA

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Prayer of Thanksgiving - For the Beauty of the Earth

We give you thanks, most gracious God, for the beauty of earth and sky and sea: for the richness of mountains, plains,and rivers; for the songs of birds and the loveliness of flowers. We praise you for these good gifts, and pray that we may safeguard them for our posterity. Grant that we may continue to grow in our grateful enjoyment of your abundant creation, to honor and glory of your Name, now and for ever. Amen.

~ From The Book of Common Prayer of the Episcopal Church

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Thanksgiving

We return thanks to our mother, the earth

which sustains us

We return thanks to the rivers and streams

which supply us with water.

We return thanks to all herbs,

which furnish medicines for the cure of our diseases.

We return thanks to the moon and stars,

which have given to us their light when the sun was gone.

We return thanks to the sun,

that has looked upon the earth with a beneficient eye.

Lastly, we return thanks to the Great Spirit,

in Whom is embodied all goodness,

and Who directs all things for the good of Her children.

~Iroquois~

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Honor the sacred.

Honor the Earth, our Mother.

Honor the Elders.

Honor all with whom we share the Earth:

Four-legged, two leggeds, winged ones,

Swimmers, crawlers, plant and rock people.

Walk in balance and beauty.

~ Native American Elder~

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"I hope to be remembered as someone who made the earth

a little more beautiful.

~ Justice William O. Douglas

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"Here in this wooded valley, mossy, cool,

Where mountain water murmurs over stone,

The jarfly sings upon a greenbriar stool

A song I do believe is all his own

In this green mansion sunrays penetrate

The trembling leaves between the earth and sky:

The redbird sings a love song to his mate,

And lazy winds mock singing bird and fly.

To this greenworld I bring my Love with me

And leave behind my gun and hunting hounds;

And handin hand we go as silently

As snowbirds over winter's frosted ground.

How can we sing a love song when we hear

The barking squirrel, the redbird's love-song voice,

The water, wind, the jarfly's lonesome churr?

We listen to the love songs of our choice."

- Jesse Stuart ("Valley Love Songs")

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"All things belonging to the earth will never change

- the leaf, the blade, the flower, the wind that cries

and sleeps and wakes again, the trees whose stiff arms

clash and tremble in the dark, and the dust of lovers

long since buried in the earth - all things proceeding

from the earth to seasons, all things that lapse and

change and come again upon the earth - these things

will always be the same, for they come up from the

earth that never changes, they go back into the earth

that lasts forever. Only earth endures, but it endures forever."

-Thomas Wolfe (You Can't Go Home Again)