Smiling Mallard's Prayer
For our families, children, and grandchildren; for those of us who have died; for the beloved women in our lives who, with love, tolerance, and sound advice, have sustained and forgiven us for so many years; for these men, the Smiling Mallards, whose love for each other, nurtured by an abiding and uncommon devotion to the outdoors, could have only survived these many years with a generous dollop of Your grace and good humor; for the wonder and the magic of Your natural world, where we share with You the anticipation and the laughter that each new gift brings—the beating of wings even before they can be seen, the infallible coming and going of day and night, the stillness of the woods, the quack of the mallard, the whistle of the pintail, the gobble of the tom, the explosion of the covey rise, ice on the pond, the warmth of a good fire, and dogs. If we have a hard time seeing such blessings as the gifts that they are, let us remember that they are holy. "For all Thy blessings, known and unknown, remembered and forgotten, we give Thee thanks," goes the old prayer, because it is the presence of those blessings that makes life for each of us a sacred journey.
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