An article from the Cathedral Times
by the Very Reverend Samuel G. Candler,
Dean of the Cathedral of St. Philip
Blessed are you, Lord God, for the beauty you pour upon us this Labor Day, and for the temperate showers you have poured upon our parched state in the past several days. May this water do no harm. Rather, may it refresh our reservoirs and nourish growth in our soil. May that water bring growth to our magnificent trees and to the many fruits of our own labors.
We thank you for labor today. We thank you for our own labor, and for the striving and toiling that creates new life in us. We thank you for giving us tasks and jobs and occupations and vocations that keep us alive. That labor gives us identity and purpose. And we thank you for the labor of others, all those who have prepared the soil in which we thrive.
This year, we also give you thanks for the labor that created beauty and discipline in Olympic athletes from around the world. They have represented the best in human physical skill and also the best in the human spirit. We thank you for vigorous competition and graceful conclusions, and for those games which brought together many countries in a spirit of peace and good will.
In these weeks, as the two major political parties of our own country conduct their national conventions, and as all of us watch a two month sprint toward national elections, we ask for that generous Olympic spirit to be among us. We thank you for all loyal citizens who have offered their lives for political service and labor. May our political competition be vigorous and fair. May our political contests evoke grace in our victories and in our defeats.
And, during this Fall, we give thanks that we are ultimately one country, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.
AMEN.
The Very Rev. Sam Candler