A 65-Year-Old Thanksgiving Message for Today’s World

It’s Thanksgiving for those of us in the States.  It’s time to pause and reflect, and give thanks for all that we are blessed with.

The following Thanksgiving message was written by Wilferd Peterson in 1952. Wilferd Arlan Peterson (1900–1995) was an American author who wrote for This Week magazine (a national Sunday supplement in newspapers) for many years. For twenty-five years, he wrote a monthly column for Science of Mind magazine. He published nine books starting in 1949 with The Art of Getting Along: Inspiration for Triumphant Daily Living.”

I found it going through some old papers my father had sent me many years ago.  I wanted to share it with you at this time of the year and hope that it will give you peace in this season.

Slow me down, Lord!

Ease the pounding of my heart

by the quieting of my mind.

Steady my hurried pace with a

vision of the eternal reach of time.

Give me, amidst the confusion of my day,

the calmness of the everlasting hills.

Break the tensions of my nerves and muscles

with the soothing music

of the singing streams

that live in my memory.

Help me to know the magic

restoring power of sleep.

Teach me the art of taking minute vacations…

of slowing down to take a look at a flower,

to chat with a friend,

to pat a dog,

to read a few lines from a good book.

Remind me each day of the fable of the hare

and the tortoise that I may know that the

race is not always to the swift;

that there is more to life than increasing its speed.

Let me look upward into the branches

of the towering oak and know

that it grew great and strong

because it grew slowly and well.

Slow me down, Lord, and inspire me

to send my roots deep into the soil

of life’s enduring values that I may grow

toward the stars of my greater destiny.