A simple prayer

Malcolm McDowell Woods

It has become our routine.

At my house, as we sit down to eat a meal together, we join hands and say “blessings on our meal.” When the kids were younger, the blessing was longer and more elaborate, but it has shortened as they have grown into adolescence.

Blessings on our meal.

But those four words mean a lot to me. Even in passing, even in this brief moment, it is a recognition of the food we eat, the men and women who grow it and the ways by which it reaches us.

Years ago, I was friends with a reporter who wrote for the newspaper I edited, who was an avid hunter. Each fall, he took his bow and arrows and went into the woods in search of deer. The hunt’s appeal to him was as much about the chance to commune with nature as it was about anything else, but he was also a good hunter, and he often returned with a deer, which he used to feed his family.

He used to say he considered it an honor to be able to hunt and he always offered thanks and blessings to nature for the gift of food.

I was fresh out of college and repulsed by the notion of hunting back then. But I readily acknowledge that his relationship with food was far more honest than mine. He was all too aware that a sacrifice had been made to deliver him that food — something I, picking items from freezers and shelves at a grocery store, never thought much about back then.

It’s why it matters that the bin full of Honeycrisp apples at Outpost carries a photo of the Barthels in Mequon and that the maple syrup comes from a friend’s family in Northern Kettle Moraine and that some of the greens on sale come from Milwaukee’s northside Growing Power.

It’s why I worry about cheap foods grown far away and transported around the globe. I read an interesting and horrifying piece in the New York Times recently about the journey taken by frozen ground meat patties sold in large warehouse stores and some fast food restaurants. The various ingredients in a single patty might come from six or seven different suppliers both within and outside of the U.S. Try tracking that burger to its place of origin.

I think when we can picture the path the food has taken from the ground where it was grown and harvested to our kitchens, we can’t help but feel some gratitude to the men and women who have shared in its journey and to the world which provides us this sustenance.

And, maybe, it’ll inspire us to take a bit better care of those men and women and this precious planet.

Happy Thanksgiving. Blessings on your meal.