BY DAWN BAUMGARTNER VAUGHAN

dvaughan@heraldsun.com; 419-6563

DURHAM -- As Americans gather together around the dinner table today to celebrate Thanksgiving, many will pause to say grace. For some, it will be the continuation of a routine of praying before every meal. For others, it is an annual tradition of expressing gratitude.

Even in families who don't usually say grace, there is a ritual on Thanksgiving, said Lauren Winner, assistant professor of Christian spirituality at Duke Divinity School. As Thanksgiving became a domestic practice in the mid-19th century rather than a day of giving thanks at church in the morning followed by a meal at home, Winner said, prayer before the meal was a way of perpetuating religious practice in the home.

The Rev. David Mitchell, pastor of Mt. Gilead Baptist Church, thinks grace or a blessing should be offered at every meal, year-round. Mitchell traveled the world as a U.S. Navy chaplain and saw a lot of suffering and poverty, he said. Saying grace is an opportunity to think and be grateful for what you have, he said, and in turn, we should help eliminate suffering in the world.

"Our barrel in this country has been overflowing," he said. "When the recession came last year, it was a wake-up call to feed families and those suffering first." In that spirit, the Men In Action group at Mt. Gilead on Saturday will serve food at Urban Ministries of Durham homeless shelter.

Mitchell also thinks saying grace around the dinner table is a way for families to bond together and teach their children.

"I think in our contemporary society, we've gotten away from having meals together every day," he said. Mitchell grew up around a dinner table where his family discussed politics and what happened in school that day as well as their values. "Just the grace alone instills those types of values in families. And stronger families means a stronger church," he said.

"When people get away from saying grace, they begin to lose something," Mitchell said.

The Rev. Stephen Chapman, associate professor of Old Testament at Duke Divinity School and an ordained Baptist pastor, said that grace on Thanksgiving can also be a prayer of remembrance. It's a way to mark the passage of time and remember people who have died in the past year as well as a time to express gratitude, he said.

"Especially this year, with so many households under pressure because of the economy, it is important to be appreciative of what we do have," Chapman said. "It's also a reminder that we're not alone."

Like Mitchell, he thinks the practice of saying grace at every meal has declined in recent history because the common meal is less frequent because of work schedules, after school activities and grazing.

"When you're not all at the same table, the tradition suffers. Thanksgiving remains a time to gather with family -- a feeling of occasion. It's also true in families nominally religious or highly observant," Chapman said. People feel they want to do something, he said, and even if they don't say grace, they might go around the table and say what they're thankful for.

He said that particularly in Christianity and Judaism, grace is said because food is considered one of the blessings of life, and along with family, are gifts from God.

Chapman said that when he was growing up, his mother would place a few grains of corn in a cheese cloth next to each place setting to commemorate the Pilgrims' hard winter and to remind her family that they were blessed with plenty.

Christians and Jews have specific prayers they might say before meals or for Thanksgiving, but some also offer more personal prayers. Winner said that her family is mostly Jewish, and at Thanksgiving last year her father used both the prayer book and added his own prayer.

The pastor of Christian Assembly Church in Durham, Rev. Dub Karriker, said he doesn't plan what to say during grace -- it just happens. He said the Bible is clear about beginning and ending the day with prayer, not just before meals.

"Thanksgiving is set aside to acknowledge our dependence on God, and blessing our nation individually and corporately," Karriker said. "It's good for our nation and good for our families to take a pause, gather around a meal and thank God. He is a good God."

The Rev. Roger Owens, co-pastor of Duke Memorial United Methodist Church, said that saying grace is acknowledging God's provision behind and through the work of people who made the meal possible.

"A thankful heart isn't one that thanks God just once a year," Owens said. "The habit of grace is a way of conditioning ourselves to be thankful at all times."