Borrowed Air -- For Thanksgiving

In preparation for Thanksgiving a week from today, I have Thomas Troeger's homage to the old hymnThis is My Father's World running through my head. In his poem, Troeger, who is the J. Edward and Ruth Cox Lantz Professor of Christian Communication at Yale Divinity School and an ordained clergy person in both the Presbyterian and Episcopal Churches, centers of the "nature" theme of Maltbie Babcock's poem (the guy who wrote This Is My Father's World), while at the same time recalling James 1:17, a pretty perfect text, as far as I'm concerned, for Thanksgiving: "Every generous act of giving, with every perfect gift, is from above, coming down from the Father of light."

Try this:

Sing a verse of This is My Father's World in your head (or out loud if you want!), and then sing Troeger's poem Borrowed Air" to the same melody, and see if it doesn't evoke something more than turkey and football (both good things!) for this Thanksgiving.

This is my Father's world, and to my listening ears
All nature sings and round me rings the music of the spheres
This is my Father's world, I rest me in the thought
Of rocks and trees and skies and seas, His hands the wonders wrought.

Each breath is borrowed air, not ours to keep and own;
And all our breaths as one declare what wisdom long has known.
To live is to receive and answer back with praise
To what our minds cannot conceive, the Source of all our days.

The sea flows in our veins, the dust of stars is spun
To form the coiled encoded skeins by which our cells are run.
To live is to receive and answer back with praise
To what our minds cannot conceive, the Source of all our days.

From earth and sea and dust arise yet greater things,
The wonders born of love and trust, a grateful heart that sings.
To live is to receive and answer back with praise
To what our minds cannot conceive, the Source of all our days.

And when our death draws near and tries to dim our song,
Our parting prayers will make it clear to whom we still belong.
To live is to receive and answer back with praise
To what our minds cannot conceive, the Source of all our days

(Borrowed Air (C) 2002, Oxford University Press)