Anonymous
07/17/2025 12:50
Subject: Re:Saying grace before meals with extended family - looking for some ideas
Jenerator54 wrote:With extended fam, we go around the table and each person is given to time to share what they are grateful for. Kids may say something silly or redundant, but adults (especially those visiting) can share something related to the kids about the day, e.g. "I am grateful for this community you live in. It was so nice to walk around in your neighborhood, to see your school, to see a bit of your daily life, etc." We then say "amen" at the end, and sometimes we add a blessing from other traditions, e.g. a Buddhist blessing. Often, an elder will add a quote or a line from a poem.
Nice tradition
Jenerator54
07/17/2025 12:38
Subject: Re:Saying grace before meals with extended family - looking for some ideas
With extended fam, we go around the table and each person is given to time to share what they are grateful for. Kids may say something silly or redundant, but adults (especially those visiting) can share something related to the kids about the day, e.g. "I am grateful for this community you live in. It was so nice to walk around in your neighborhood, to see your school, to see a bit of your daily life, etc." We then say "amen" at the end, and sometimes we add a blessing from other traditions, e.g. a Buddhist blessing. Often, an elder will add a quote or a line from a poem.
Anonymous
07/17/2025 12:25
Subject: Saying grace before meals with extended family - looking for some ideas
Rub a Dub Dub!
Thanks for the grub!
Yaaaaaay God!
Thanks for the grub!
Yaaaaaay God!
Anonymous
07/17/2025 12:14
Subject: Saying grace before meals with extended family - looking for some ideas
Anonymous wrote:I'm very religious and grew up in a very religious family. At dinner we say "Dear Lord God, thank you for this day. Thank you for this food. Amen." If my dad was feeling fancy he'd thank God for the hands that prepared the food too. Otherwise, we wanted to eat. Longer prayers were saved for other times of day.
From the perspective of someone religious, any kind of political prayer during grace, even in settings where everyone agrees, is weird. Grace is a prayer with a specific purpose, which is to thank someone for the food. It’s like if you opened a Christmas present from Grandma and instead of saying thank you for the gift, you asked her for cookies. Ask her that later, now is the time for thanks.
If instead of thinking of God as Grandma, someone who loves you and you have constant access to, and talk to all the time, you think of God as a political leader who you get one shot of speaking to, then volunteering to be the one to go thank him, but really taking that opportunity to sneak in some words on your favorite topic makes sense, even if it’s a little rude.
And then there is taking shared prayer and using it as opportunity to impose your own beliefs, and that’s a whole
different level of rude.
Anonymous
07/17/2025 12:08
Subject: Saying grace before meals with extended family - looking for some ideas
Anonymous
07/17/2025 12:02
Subject: Re:Saying grace before meals with extended family - looking for some ideas
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:I wish this thread hadn’t been moved from off-topic.
Would have broadened the responses.
My Trumpy parents are like “yadda yadda and please may our country (USA) lead this world into peace”
I don’t want to get political when I see them - they are in mid eighties and I want to keep remaining time light
But I do want to say something that could be ambiguous - “please may we defend /restore our country’s democracy”
We don’t live in a democracy idiot.
Whatever you want to call it currently, it's about to become a monarchy thanks to such Trumpy supporters.
Anonymous
07/17/2025 10:04
Subject: Saying grace before meals with extended family - looking for some ideas
I'm very religious and grew up in a very religious family. At dinner we say "Dear Lord God, thank you for this day. Thank you for this food. Amen." If my dad was feeling fancy he'd thank God for the hands that prepared the food too. Otherwise, we wanted to eat. Longer prayers were saved for other times of day.
Anonymous
07/17/2025 09:45
Subject: Saying grace before meals with extended family - looking for some ideas
We say:
We thank the earth who grew our food from little bursting seeds
and the keeper of the earth whose gifts fulfill our needs.
Also sing the Johnny Appleseed song:
Oh the lords been good to me and so I think the lord
for giving me the things I need- the sun and the rain and the apple seed
the lord's been good to me.
(and then usually add the silly: Amen, dig in)
My step grandparents always used to say:
Bless oh lord this food to our use and us to thy service in J-----' name we pray. Amen
(which is nice but doesn't hold with my beliefs)
We thank the earth who grew our food from little bursting seeds
and the keeper of the earth whose gifts fulfill our needs.
Also sing the Johnny Appleseed song:
Oh the lords been good to me and so I think the lord
for giving me the things I need- the sun and the rain and the apple seed
the lord's been good to me.
(and then usually add the silly: Amen, dig in)
My step grandparents always used to say:
Bless oh lord this food to our use and us to thy service in J-----' name we pray. Amen
(which is nice but doesn't hold with my beliefs)
Anonymous
07/17/2025 09:37
Subject: Re:Saying grace before meals with extended family - looking for some ideas
Anonymous wrote:I wish this thread hadn’t been moved from off-topic.
Would have broadened the responses.
My Trumpy parents are like “yadda yadda and please may our country (USA) lead this world into peace”
I don’t want to get political when I see them - they are in mid eighties and I want to keep remaining time light
But I do want to say something that could be ambiguous - “please may we defend /restore our country’s democracy”
We don’t live in a democracy idiot.
Anonymous
07/17/2025 09:30
Subject: Re:Saying grace before meals with extended family - looking for some ideas
I wish this thread hadn’t been moved from off-topic.
Would have broadened the responses.
My Trumpy parents are like “yadda yadda and please may our country (USA) lead this world into peace”
I don’t want to get political when I see them - they are in mid eighties and I want to keep remaining time light
But I do want to say something that could be ambiguous - “please may we defend /restore our country’s democracy”
Would have broadened the responses.
My Trumpy parents are like “yadda yadda and please may our country (USA) lead this world into peace”
I don’t want to get political when I see them - they are in mid eighties and I want to keep remaining time light
But I do want to say something that could be ambiguous - “please may we defend /restore our country’s democracy”
Anonymous
07/13/2025 07:27
Subject: Saying grace before meals with extended family - looking for some ideas
Anonymous wrote:Thank you for the food before us, the friends beside us, and the love among us.
As an atheist, I would just change the words at the beginning: "We appreciate (or 'We are thankful for') the food before us,....etc......" because we are the ones who prepared the food, or bought it.
Anonymous
07/12/2025 22:55
Subject: Re:Saying grace before meals with extended family - looking for some ideas
I believe that a prayer is a conversation with God, and that He values sincerity over formality. I don’t think any prayer is lame, as long as it comes from your heart, but if your focus is on impressing other people, you’ve missed the point entirely.