a UU favorite for Thanksgiving. Offered at the Interfaith Hour of Thanks, 7:00 tonight at St. Michael’s Episcopal Church in Carmichael. Join me and our interfaith neighbors!

These words come from a prayer written long ago by the Reverend Max Coots, a Unitarian Universalist minister who was born in 1929 and who served in historically Universalist congregations in New York State. It’s entitled A Harvest of People. Informally it is called the Vegetable Prayer.

Just in case you never heard of a hubbard, it is a very large winter squash. 

A Harvest of People. Let us give thanks for a bounty of people. For children, who are our second planting. Even though they grow like weeds and the wind too soon blows them away. May they remember fondly where their roots are.

For generous friends with hearts as big as hubbards/ and smiles as bright as blossoms. For feisty friends as tart as apples; For continuous friends, who, like scallions and cucumbers, keep reminding us that we’ve had them.

For crotchety friends, as sour as rhubarb [ROO-barb] and as indestructible. For funny friends, as silly as brussels sprouts. And serious friends, as complex as cauliflowers and as intricate as onions. For friends as un-pretentious as cabbages and friends, like parsnips, who can be counted on to see you through the winter. For old friends, nodding like sunflowers in the evening.

And for young friends, coming on as fast as radishes.
For loving friends, who wind around us like tendrils, and who hold us, despite our blights, and wilts, and witherings;

And, finally, we give thanks for those friends who are now gone, but who fed us in their times so that we might live. Let us give thanks for the bounty of people in our lives. Amen.