This Week At The Table…

Just “down the road” from where I grew up in Hudson Bay, Saskatchewan is the little town of Nipawin. You can take the boy out of the town without taking the town out of the boy, so when I heard overheard a news item yesterday with the word “Nipawin” in it, I turned up the volume.

It turned out to be the story of four guys who took their 4×4 out onto a large lake in that area to do some ice fishing. When the weather started to turn bad, they headed back, only to encounter conditions that caused them to spend the night out on the lake. They had sufficient fuel to stay warm enough through one night, but knew that if they didn’t get rescued the next day they would be in serious trouble.

 

Well, to shorten the story for my own purposes, rescue did show up around noon the next day. When the radio interviewer I heard asked the group spokesperson how he felt when he saw the snowmobile headlights coming across the lake, he said, “I just wanted to fall down on my knees in the snow. I’ve never felt so thankful.”

That sensation of gratitude and the desire to find an object for it, to put some actions around it, seems to be a significant human experience. This month at The Table we’re exploring the idea that Help, Thanks and Wow are the three essential prayers. This week (as you may have guessed), we’re on about Thanks.

We will meet at 493 Notre Dame at 10:30 a.m., and if it’s cold and blustery we’ll take a moment to be especially thankful for warmth, shelter and companionship on the journey.

Peace,

Tim