In Praise of the Giver

I can hardly draw a breath to thank the Friend, for I know no thanks that would be worthy of him. Every hair on my body is a gift from him; how could I offer thanks for each single hair? Praise be to the generous Lord who brought his servant out of nothing into being. Who has the strength to describe his kindness? All descriptions drown in the greatness of his glory. The Wondrous One who shapes a person out of clay and grants him spirit, wisdom, mind, and heart. From your father's loins to the final slope of old age, look at the robes of honor he bestowed on you from the unseen. Since he made you pure, stay aware and pure, for it is a disgrace to go to the grave unclean. Keep wiping the dust off the mirror again and again, for once it rusts, no polish can restore it. Were you not at first only a drop of fluid? If you are truly a man, drive the ego out of your head. When by effort you gain your daily bread, do not lean on the strength of your own arm. Why don't you see the truth, you self-worshipper, that it is he who sets your arm and hand in motion? When good comes to you through your striving, know it as God's grace, not as your own effort. No one has won the prize by his own strength; give thanks to the Lord who grants success. You cannot stand a single step on your own; help reaches you from the unseen, moment by moment. Were you not once a speechless infant, silent of boasting? Yet food came to your belly through the navel. When they cut the cord and that supply was severed, your hand reached out and clung to your mother's breast. A stranger whom the world afflicts with hardship is given, as remedy, water from his own hometown. So the child was nourished within the womb, fed through the channel of the stomach. The two breasts he longs for today are also two springs from the place that raised him. The mother's lap and warm embrace are paradise, and the breast within is a stream of milk. She is a tree that nourishes life, and the child is her precious fruit upon the branch. Are not the veins of the breast joined to the heart? So if you look closely, that milk is the blood of the heart. He sinks his teeth like a needle into her blood, yet she has woven her love into that blood-drinking child. When his arm grows strong and his teeth grow firm, the nurse smears the breast with bitterness to wean him. With patience she calms his craving for milk, until he forgets the sweet breast entirely. You too, still a child on the road of repentance, with patience your sin will be forgotten.