Column: Amazing grace?

Last week was one of the worst weeks I had in a long time. Good thing my boyfriend and I already had plans to go home to escape the bad insanity that was Bloomington this weekend.

We rolled into Valparaiso at about dinner time, to my dad’s special spaghetti sauce. We sat around the kitchen table, talking and relaxing, until dinner was served.

“Lil, your turn.”

“What?  Oh ...”

My turn to say grace.

I don’t know what is the norm for saying grace at meals, but I definitely have an unorthodox method that I created back when I was in first grade. It involves a simple dinner prayer I learned in preschool with “to infinity and beyond” added at the end and is said at record-breaking high speeds.

Needless to say, it’s a bit ridiculous. And immature. After all, I am 20. But I’ve gotten into a few enthusiastic discussion with my parents, as I did that night, about the importance of grace and why we have to say it.

In our times, it seems we live in a world of too many rapid changes — changes to religion, changes to lifestyles, changes to classes, changes to every single little thing that we choose to affect our lives.

And currently, I am of the opinion that grace hardly has a place at modern meals.

After all, you don’t say grace when going out to eat. I’ve never heard of anyone saying grace when they eat alone. And you hardly see dinner with grace within our age group.

For me, it’s a choice. I choose not to say grace at dinner for many reasons, including time restraint and setting. As I consider myself agnostic at this point in time, it seems strange to send up praise to a god when I don’t even know what denomination that god or I belong to.

For my parents, especially my mom, it makes more sense. Mom came from a fairly strict Catholic background, so grace was part of every dinner. I don’t know about Dad’s family, but he has his own Scottish grace as well.

Their prayers just sound so much more, well, official. Maybe it’s the wording, but comparing it to mine with “to infinity and beyond” at the end, it’s just not juvenile.

I definitely like the ring of the Scottish grace my dad says. But heaven knows I can’t understand it, especially when I don’t care enough to learn it.

So why should I say grace anyway? Particularly when I don’t have any one god to thank.

“Because it’s tradition.”

“Because you’re giving thanks.”

“Because this is a wonderful gift that you have been blessed with.”

Yeah, yeah, yeah, same thing I’ve heard before.

I hate to sound like I’m repeating myself. I know I’ve written a few columns about being truly grateful for all that we have here on earth, especially us here at school.

What it comes down to is everyone is fighting a difficult battle, whether it’s hidden from
everyone else’s sight or involving many different friends and family members.

But for some reason, there is always food available somewhere, somehow. It grows in every fertile part of the land through plants and animals. No matter who prays to what deity, food is provided in edible form.

I know my current lifestyle doesn’t really allow me to say grace at meals. But down the line, I know I’ll teach my family to say something at dinner.

After all, if you’re not thankful for the food you eat, the food you eat to survive and thrive, what are you thankful for?