Saying Grace

July 23 2015

We never said grace.

3 hungry boys

at the family table

1 wheedling dog

underfoot.

We learned to eat fast

before it was gone.

When even people like us

-- of nominal faith, and hardly observant --

would do well by thankfulness.

And a ritual

to begin the meal

can be comforting,

a thoughtful pause, a formal start

before the free-for-all,

digging-in

chowing-down.

As well as a nod

to togetherness,

whether holding hands

or solemnly clasping our own.

But how to give thanks

when you don't believe in prayer?

When it seems hypocritical

deferring to God?

Back when we killed an animal

for its meat,

gutted, cleaned, butchered it,

we were obliged to be grateful.

A life for a life,

the intimacy

of the knife through the neck.

The hot spurt

of arterial blood

so exquisitely red.

But if gratitude

is the foundation of happiness

we can also give thanks

for steaks that come plastic-wrapped,

relief when the harvest

is in, at last.

For the company of table

the safety of home.

Each morning at school

began with the anthem

on a scratchy PA.

Then the Lord's prayer,

rattled-off like a formula

word-for-word.

And at summer camp

an insincere grace,

as irreverent as "Rub-a-dub-dub

thanks for the grub

yaaaay, God!"

Now, I say nothing at all.

Just stop

in humility, and wonderment

at the cosmic unlikelihood

of this
              ...me

                        ...us.

At the privilege of sentience,

the bounty

of enough.

The plastic-wrapped steak is kind of where this poem originated for me. That is, it began with how alienated we are from the sources of our food. (Which is why the preceding stanza is so graphic. For meat to be both halal and kosher, the main artery in the neck is cut while the animal is alive -- unlike the usual practice, in which livestock are stunned with a bolt to the brain. This is thought to allow the animal to be properly bled. And it means that the ritual slaughterer has no choice but to be intimate with the bloody essence of killing.)

The poem also began with how complacent we are about industrial agriculture, and our utter lack of self-sufficiency without it. Because we feel, in fact, no relief when the harvest/ is in: we never for a moment imagine it could be otherwise! But the reality is that when the oil stops and the fertilizer's gone and the trucks grind to a halt and we've pumped all the aquifers dry, and then one day out of the blue we're surprised to find all the supermarket shelves stripped clean, we'll quickly starve.

Although of course, the heart of the poem is right there in all the repetition -- in words like grace and thankfulness and thanks: it's a poem about gratitude; a poem that turns on the saying of grace. In some family cultures, this is automatic. Which doesn't presume that it's either meaningful or sincere: it can be an empty ritual, a comforting habit, a matter of inertia. And sometimes it's not the least bit heartfelt; instead, it can be the oppressive obligatory unction of austere religiosity.

I like the idea of grace and of ritual, but don't believe in God. So the language of grace usually leaves me cold. But I'm also aware of the power of gratitude, of the imperative of perspective and humility. So the poem offers a resolution to this conflict between my need for reverence and my disdain for its conventional form: an atheist's grace, if you will.

I'm not sure if the silly grace fits the mostly serious tone of the rest of the poem. It's here because it's true. And because I hope it will either invoke nostalgia or evoke delighted smiles. I grew up when the ritual expression of mainstream religion was still present in these public spheres: school, camp. In the Canada of that era, there was the unquestioned presumption that we were a Christian nation. (Today, of course, the imposition of such majoritarian values would never be tolerated.) For many formative years, I was involved with a YMCA summer camp (Pine Crest, run by the Toronto Y on a lake near Gravenhurst). Back then, the ritual of grace, along with vespers on Sunday morning, were the two surviving vestiges of its Christian foundation; but a grace, as the example attests, that had been corrupted to the point of meaninglessness.