Saying Grace: Blessings for the Family Table

By Sarah McElwain and David Dean

120 mealtime blessings from around the world, featuring a variety of sentiments, from the amusing to the heartfelt to the sacred.

Offering thanks for our daily bread is just about universal. A Chinese proverb gives us this reminder, “When eating bamboo shoots, remember the man who planted them.” The Irish lyrically ask that “the sweet light within you guide you on your way.” And for those who like to cut to the chase, there’s “Good bread, good meat, good God, let’s eat.” What they have in common is a joyous and heartwarming appreciation for life’s bounty.

Beautifully illustrated, these pages a bounty of blessings, timeless prayers, and irreverent sayings that connect us to all cultures and countries. Saying Grace is an expression of gratitude perfect for holidays, passing around the family table, or for solitary contemplation—whenever the spirit moves you.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Open Road Integrated Media
• Release date: Oct 26, 2012
• ISBN: 9781452125046

David Dean

David Dean spent most of his childhood drawing Star Wars characters and Transformers, and wanted to draw comics before realising that someone must draw book covers - what a fantastic job that would be! David is now an award-winning illustrator specialising in children's illustration and book covers, and lives in Cheshire with his two cats and hundreds of books.

Book preview

SAYING GRACE

Expressing gratitude for the food on our tables is universal. People in all times and in every place have felt the need to say thanks for what they are about to eat. Whether graces are said over meals eaten with chopsticks or spoons, around a campfire, or over the best holiday dishes, they are part of every culture.

The graces and table blessings in Saying Grace are like stuffing recipes. There are many different kinds, and everyone has a favorite. Some, like celery, onion, and bread crumbs, are simply traditional. Passed from one generation to another and repeated daily or yearly at holidays, they are as familiar at the table as the traditional foods they share. Other blessings in Saying Grace are exotic, like recipes that call for unusual fruits and spices.

The graces found here are drawn from a variety of great religious books and connect us to our ancient pasts. Some are regional. Like a recipe for Louisiana Crayfish Jambalaya stuffing, they evoke a certain time and place. The ceremonial Native American corn-planting chants, for example, take us for a moment to the early American Great Plains, while 17th-century fishermen’s prayers hark back to the rugged coast of Scotland.

Most blessings collected in Saying Grace address some form of the sacred, but also included are those like the cowboy blessings and singing graces that say thanks in a slightly more irreverent and humorous manner.

All of the selections are intended to inspire thoughts of gratitude. Many traditions call for spontaneous expressions of thankfulness spoken by those present around the table. Others simply sit together in a moment of shared, silent thankfulness.

Since many of the world’s greatest writers, poets, humanitarians, and philosophers have composed poems or words of gratitude for their daily bread, Saying Grace includes quotations from St. Francis of Assisi; Zoroaster, the late 7th century Persian philosopher; Josephine Delphine Henderson Heard, the African-American poet;