Midweek Musing-November 12, 2025

I said something on Monday as we came in from outside bus duty where it was 14 degrees with the lovely wind chill that shocked a colleague.

As we were de-layering they said, “Mr. G, I am getting some coffee, do you want a cup?”

My response was simply, “No! I don’t drink coffee. Never have. Never will.”

If her face hadn’t been nearly frozen her jaw would have dropped.  She was shocked. “No, coffee ever?”

“Nope. I have never even had my name written on a Starbucks cup.”

This young teacher nearly fainted, I think.

So, right here and right now is my confession for one and all: I don’t like coffee.

Yes, I know that sounds like heresy in some circles. And some of you reading this have actually gasped aloud while clutching your mugs.

And in the past, there have been folks who upon hearing this confession have asked me how I even function!

I can tell you I am doing fine because the truth is I have another form of caffeine addiction. And if you know me you have already said what it is in your head.

Diet Coke.

In fact, my warning to you is that you don’t get in the way of me and my morning Diet Coke.

Ahh, that first crisp, fizzy sip of the day. Well, that is my magic elixir, my sunrise prayer, and my own personal morning song of joy inspired by caffeine and carbonation.

But here’s the thing: the other day, I opened the fridge and reached in to get a Diet Coke only to realize I was out. And not just in the fridge. I looked in the pantry. And again, there was none. Nope, not even one can or two-liter bottle.

I stood there staring at the empty shelves as if sheer willpower might make one appear. And in that moment of crisis—and let’s be honest, it was a crisis—I had this thought:

You never know how thankful you are for something until it’s not there.

It’s funny, isn’t it? How we can take the small gifts for granted until the routine is disrupted.

Such as a missing cup of coffee or Diet Coke or the ability to call someone who is now no longer there.

I know we all say we are grateful people, and we want to mean it. But if we’re honest, we spend most days rushing past all of the very many blessings we claim to cherish.

So often we forget to give thanks for the ordinary gifts that hold our days together like the warmth of sunlight through the window, the laughter of a child, the steady rhythm of breath, or simply the strength to be able to get up and go about our lives.

Gratitude for these gifts slips quietly into the background until something disrupts things and breaks our routine and the pattern we have become so accustomed to we take it for granted. Like when we find ourselves standing before an empty fridge or one day a suddenly empty chair. And then we realize what once was so common to us was, indeed, a gift.

Of course, sadly it is also easy to take for granted God’s gift of love and grace. We forget how beautiful and sacred Christ’s actions on the cross were for all humanity including us individually.

Friends, that is why the Sacrament of the Lord’s Supper that we experience at the Lord’s Table is so vital to our faith. It’s God’s invitation to stop rushing and to remember and give thanks.

In fact, the very word we use for this meal, Eucharist, comes from the Greek eucharisteo, which literally means to give thanks.

And it’s the same word Jesus used in the upper room when he “took bread, gave thanks, and broke it.”

Beloved siblings in Christ, when we gather at that table, we are practicing thanksgiving. We are re-learning what the world teaches us to forget, which is that everything we have is a gift.

In coming to the Lord’s table bread becomes body, cup becomes covenant, and we—ordinary, distracted, imperfect people—are gathered and fed by grace.

And in that simple act of breaking bread, we are reminded that our only hope comes by what we receive as a gift and not by what we earn.

And we are encouraged to remember that every table, every meal, every shared act of love given and shared echoes that heavenly feast where Christ is host and all know they are both welcome but also beloved.

The Eucharistic meal is meant to reorient our hearts. One of its purposes is to slow us down long enough to see what’s been true all along—that gratitude isn’t a holiday mood or a polite word we say before the meal; it’s the rhythm of a life lived in awareness of grace.

Maybe that’s why Scripture is full of invitations to give thanks—not because God needs to hear it, but because we need to remember it.The psalmist sang, “Enter his gates with thanksgiving, and his courts with praise.”

The psalmist sang, “Enter his gates with thanksgiving and his courts with praise.”

It isn’t simply an instruction to smile more; it’s a call to remember—to look at life through resurrection eyes and see the holy in the ordinary.

And in remembering we are able to live differently.

The PCUSA Brief Statement of Faith reminds us: “In gratitude to God, empowered by the Spirit, we strive to serve Christ in our daily tasks and to live holy and joyful lives.”

That’s not just good theology—it’s good living. Gratitude empowers. It transforms routine into reverence, habit into holiness. It’s the quiet decision to see every encounter as grace, every meal as Communion, and every table as a sacred space.

Trappist monk Thomas Merton once wrote, “To be grateful is to recognize the love of God in everything He has given us—and He has given us everything.”

So, friends whether it’s a can of Diet Coke, a cup of java, an unexpected flower, a piece of bread and cup of grape juice, or simply just another day may we learn to pause and give thanks.

For every table we gather around points us toward the heavenly banquet to come, where gratitude is no longer a practice but a way of being—where Christ, the host, welcomes us home with love beyond measure.

May we never forget to give thanks. May the familiar never become routine.

And may even the simplest table remind us of the grace that has already been set before us and that the kingdom of God is waiting for us in the promised day to come.

So maybe tomorrow morning, when I open the fridge and reach for that first Diet Coke—or you reach for your coffee mug—we might whisper a small prayer of thanks. For the drink in our hand, for the breath in our lungs, and for the grace that never runs out

In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Alleluia Amen.