“Climb the mountains and get their good tidings.

Nature’s peace will flow into you as sunshine flows into trees.

The winds will blow their own freshness into you,

and the storms their energy,

while cares will drop off like autumn leaves.”

John Muir (1838-1914, Scottish-born American conservationist, founder of the Sierra Club, Father of the American National Parks and patron saint of the American environmentalism.)

Maybe that is why I like hiking in the mountains north of Vancouver – it lets my cares drop like autumn leaves.  This past week, a hiking buddy and I managed to ascend (and descend) the mountains for a 10 hour hike.  It took us up an old logging road, in behind the Lions, where snow from last winter still lingers in the cold, drafty, north-facing slopes, along the meandering Howe Sound Crest Trail, around this and that mountain, and back down again to our starting point.  I returned home somewhat sorer than when I started, but deeply grateful for the fullness of the day.

This Monday, we celebrate Thanksgiving Day.  Apparently, this day was inaugurated by the Canadian Parliament in 1957 to give thanks to “Almighty God for the bountiful harvest with which Canada has been blessed.”  For many the reference to God has quietly slipped away, but for all the tradition continues to be important.

On my hike, I had much for which to give thanks.  Thanks for my health and strength that permitted me to persist for 10 hours on the trail.  Thanks for a safe day.  Thanks for the freedom and means to leave my home and travel to the mountains.  Thanks for the beauty of mountain hemlock, amabalis fir, and yellow cypress, massive and statuesque.  Thanks for the splash of red, yellow and orange of the oval-leaved blueberry, huckleberry, azalea and rhododendron.  Thanks for the foggy wisps caressing the Lions with their cool embrace.

Eucharistica is Greek for “thanksgiving.”  Our daily Eucharist is an act of thanksgiving – thanksgiving for the saving mystery of Jesus Christ.  Thanksgiving is thus at the heart of our faith.

However, it is not often easy to be thankful.  We are often side-tracked by our fears or our preoccupations to give much thought to the eucharistic soul of our lives.  How often we lament the lack of this or that, oblivious to the abundance of so much.  Simple inconveniences cloud our vision.  We forget the generosity of others, the simple fact none of us could live without the work, the intelligence and the ingenuity of countless people unknown to us.  How often we take the necessities of life for granted, our food, our water, our warmth and protection, none of which would be possible without the basic and indispensible services offered by healthy ecosystems.

When you find it difficult to give thanks, pray for the grace to be thankful.  Be patient with yourself.  Gratitude will come.  It is a gift.  It frees us, it makes us humble and aware.  It calls us into relationship and union.

I am indeed grateful for this day.  I awake, alive, breathing, heart pumping.  Who knows what this day will bring – joy or sadness, hope or despair.  But in and through it all, what I plead for is an open and gracious heart.  Be thankful, if only for the smallest of things.  Let gratitude become a habit.  Before you know it, not a day will pass without a word of thanks.

A blessed Thanksgiving – this Monday and always.