Surely it’s fine to be grateful for lunch every day, day after day. Each lunch is an opportunity to give thanks for so much.

I count at least eight obvious things to be grateful for in this simple lunch, each with a backstory encompassing many more: Bread, mayonnaise, bacon, avocado, tomato, lettuce, and 7 the bread’s toasted and 8 it’s on a plate. That there is a plate, and what it’s made of, where it came from, how it came to be here, that it was clean and will be clean again with soap and hot water and rinsed with hot clear water, water from a tap the flick of a wrist brings forth, in a stainless steel sink, in a functioning kitchen inside a house with a roof… and how did the house come to be, what countless beings and elements contributed to its building? And the plate goes on… That there is toast from a toaster plugged into a wall hiding wires connected to a string of devices that bring electricity from the sun; the sun itself that gives life to the planet; this planet… and all the growing living things that go into the sandwich itself, and their long trails of origins and how they all came to be here together, in this one lunch… Nothing is separate from anything else. I am grateful for each lunch, a marvel, day after day.