The Founder of the Feast

Thank you for reading, watching and listening to TaoCraft Short Sip: Tarot for your day in the time it takes to sip from your morning coffee. Today’s card is the King of Pentacles

Saying thank you to the people who work so that you can eat and live is the best grace that you can say.

In A Christmas Carol, Bob Cratchit proposes a toast to Mr. Scrooge, the “founder of the feast” which prompts a room sized rant about how terrible Scrooge treats Bob. It’s a valid point and necessary to the story.

But I wonder – who thanked Bob for working that awful job that let them put a flaming dessert on the table? Or thanked Mrs. Cratchit for cooking a big family meal in a nineteenth century kitchen?

When I was young, the extended family would get together for Christmas and my uncle, the evangelical minister would pray over the food in dramatic fashion for what seemed like hours when all I wanted to do was dive in to the ham and grandma’s cornbread dressing. To his credit, in the middle of the conspicuous baby jeebus rhetoric, he always managed to throw in a one sentence thanks to the “hands that prepared” the food.

To my mind that is where the real grace was said.

If you work and provide food and shelter – thank you. If you cook a meal – thank you. If you work in grocery stores, deliver the mail, give entertainment, or do anything to make anything work and help the tribe of humankind survive the longest night – thank you.