November Blessings Quotes

In November, people are good to each other. They carry pies to each other's homes and talk by crackling woodstoves, sipping mellow cider. They travel very far on a special November day just to share a meal with one another and to give thanks for their many blessings - for the food on their tables and the babies in their arms.

Flurries early, pristine and pearly. Winter's come calling! Can we endure so premature a falling? Some may find this trend distressing- others bend to say a blessing over sage and onion dressing.

In 1863, Abraham Lincoln declared two Thanksgivings. One was held in August. The second, held in November, was to give thanks for the nation's blessings. This fall celebration caught on and has been a tradition ever since.

...those retrospectively blessed dozen years lasted from the chilly, fevered Central European night of November 9th, 1989 to that bright morning on the Eastern Seaboard of American of September 11th, 2001. One event symbolized the lifted threat of a worldwide nuclear holocaust, something which had been hanging over humanity for nearly forty years, and so ended an age of idiocy. The other ushered in a new one.

I looked for any footmarks of course, but naturally, with all this rain, there wasn't a sign. Of course, if this were a detective story, there'd have been a convenient shower exactly an hour before the crime and a beautiful set of marks which could only have come there between two and three in the morning, but this being real life in a London November, you might as well expect footprints in Niagara. I searched the roofs right along—and came to the jolly conclusion that any person in any blessed flat in the blessed row might have done it.

I believe with all my heart that standing up for America means standing up for the God who has so blessed our land. We need God’s help to guide our nation through stormy seas. But we can’t expect Him to protect America in a crisis if we just leave Him over on the shelf in our day-to-day living. Speech, New Orleans, November 16, 1982

Who trusts the Bridge Builder when you wake to snow on your blankets and winter blasting through cracked walls and dinner for four is a fifty cent box of Kraft Dinner rationed in half and your dad tells you every single day that he just doesn't know how there is ever going to be enough? How do you count on life when the hopes don't add up? A morning in late November, joy shimmers. The hopes don't have to add up. The blessings do. ...count blessings and discover who can be counted on.

BOWLS OF FOOD Moon and evening star do their slow tambourine dance to praise this universe. The purpose of every gathering is discovered: to recognize beauty and love what’s beautiful. “Once it was like that, now it’s like this,” the saying goes around town, and serious consequences too. Men and women turn their faces to the wall in grief. They lose appetite. Then they start eating the fire of pleasure, as camels chew pungent grass for the sake of their souls. Winter blocks the road. Flowers are taken prisoner underground. Then green justice tenders a spear. Go outside to the orchard. These visitors came a long way, past all the houses of the zodiac, learning Something new at each stop. And they’re here for such a short time, sitting at these tables set on the prow of the wind. Bowls of food are brought out as answers, but still no one knows the answer. Food for the soul stays secret. Body food gets put out in the open like us. Those who work at a bakery don’t know the taste of bread like the hungry beggars do. Because the beloved wants to know, unseen things become manifest. Hiding is the hidden purpose of creation: bury your seed and wait. After you die, All the thoughts you had will throng around like children. The heart is the secret inside the secret. Call the secret language, and never be sure what you conceal. It’s unsure people who get the blessing. Climbing cypress, opening rose, Nightingale song, fruit, these are inside the chill November wind. They are its secret. We climb and fall so often. Plants have an inner Being, and separate ways of talking and feeling. An ear of corn bends in thought. Tulip, so embarrassed. Pink rose deciding to open a competing store. A bunch of grapes sits with its feet stuck out. Narcissus gossiping about iris. Willow, what do you learn from running water? Humility. Red apple, what has the Friend taught you? To be sour. Peach tree, why so low? To let you reach. Look at the poplar, tall but without fruit or flower. Yes, if I had those, I’d be self-absorbed like you. I gave up self to watch the enlightened ones. Pomegranate questions quince, Why so pale? For the pearl you hid inside me. How did you discover my secret? Your laugh. The core of the seen and unseen universes smiles, but remember, smiles come best from those who weep. Lightning, then the rain-laughter. Dark earth receives that clear and grows a trunk. Melon and cucumber come dragging along on pilgrimage. You have to be to be blessed! Pumpkin begins climbing a rope! Where did he learn that? Grass, thorns, a hundred thousand ants and snakes, everything is looking for food. Don’t you hear the noise? Every herb cures some illness. Camels delight to eat thorns. We prefer the inside of a walnut, not the shell. The inside of an egg, the outside of a date. What about your inside and outside? The same way a branch draws water up many feet, God is pulling your soul along. Wind carries pollen from blossom to ground. Wings and Arabian stallions gallop toward the warmth of spring. They visit; they sing and tell what they think they know: so-and-so will travel to such-and-such. The hoopoe carries a letter to Solomon. The wise stork says lek-lek. Please translate. It’s time to go to the high plain, to leave the winter house. Be your own watchman as birds are. Let the remembering beads encircle you. I make promises to myself and break them. Words are coins: the vein of ore and the mine shaft, what they speak of. Now consider the sun. It’s neither oriental nor occidental. Only the soul knows what love is. This moment in time and space is an eggshell with an embryo crumpled inside, soaked in belief-yolk, under the wing of grace, until it breaks free of mind to become the song of an actual bird, and God.

V. Grant, Lord, a blessing. Benediction . May almighty God grant us a quiet night and a perfect end. Amen. Short reading 1 Pet 5:8-9 Brothers: Be sober and watch: because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, goeth about seeking whom he may devour. Whom resist ye, strong in faith:

November 3 “For the vision is yet for an appointed time, but at the end it shall speak, and not lie: though it tarry, wait for it; because it will surely come, it will not tarry.” Habakkuk 2:3 MERCY may seem slow, but it is sure. The Lord in unfailing wisdom has appointed a time for the outgoings of his gracious power, and God’s time is the best time. We are in a hurry; the vision of the blessing excites our desire, and hastens our longings; but the Lord will keep his appointments. He never is before his time; he never is behind. God’s Word is here spoken of as a living thing which will speak, and will come. It is never a dead letter, as we are tempted to fear when we have long watched for its fulfilment. The living Word is on the way from the living God, and though it may seem to linger, it is not in reality doing so. God’s train is not behind time. It is only a matter of patience, and we shall soon see for ourselves the faithfulness of the Lord. No promise of his shall fail; “it will not lie.” No promise of his will be lost in silence; “it shall speak.” What comfort it will speak to the believing ear! No promise of his shall need to be renewed like a bill which could not be paid on the day in which it fell due – “it will not tarry.” Come, my soul, canst thou not wait for thy God? Rest in him and be still in unutterable peacefulness.

Pride in my father, thankfulness that he had been my father, and an ultimately grateful feeling of respect (grudging at first, it took a while to come) for the aching if imperfect love he never ceased to feel for Mom—these are the things I wanted to hold on to. It will soon be seven years since the night I bent down by his bed to press my ear against his chest and listen to his breathing as his life came to its end. But even now, and even after rounding out the story of his sometimes turbulent complexity, as I’ve felt obliged to do in order to keep faith with the reality of who he was, it is the reaffirming memories that crowd out all the rest. The sense that I was on a journey with my father—seventy-two years is a good big piece of anybody’s life—did not end abruptly on the day I buried him. On cold November nights when I’m in a thoughtful mood or worried about problems with my work, or personal missteps I may have made, and go out walking by myself along the country roads around my house, I like to imagine that he’s there beside me still, tapping that old cane of his, making his amusing comments on the unpredictable events and unexpected twists and turns in other people’s lives. Perhaps, over the next few years, that sense of his continuing companionship will fade. It probably will. But some part of the legacy my father and good mother gave me will, I know, remain with me even when their voices and their words and the expressions on their faces and the vivid details of their life’s adventure become attenuated in the course of time. Some of the blessings that our parents give us, I need to believe, outlive the death of memory.

Hunsford, near Westerham, Kent, 15th October. “Dear Sir,— “The disagreement subsisting between yourself and my late honoured father always gave me much uneasiness, and since I have had the misfortune to lose him, I have frequently wished to heal the breach; but for some time I was kept back by my own doubts, fearing lest it might seem disrespectful to his memory for me to be on good terms with anyone with whom it had always pleased him to be at variance.—’There, Mrs. Bennet.’—My mind, however, is now made up on the subject, for having received ordination at Easter, I have been so fortunate as to be distinguished by the patronage of the Right Honourable Lady Catherine de Bourgh, widow of Sir Lewis de Bourgh, whose bounty and beneficence has preferred me to the valuable rectory of this parish, where it shall be my earnest endeavour to demean myself with grateful respect towards her ladyship, and be ever ready to perform those rites and ceremonies which are instituted by the Church of England. As a clergyman, moreover, I feel it my duty to promote and establish the blessing of peace in all families within the reach of my influence; and on these grounds I flatter myself that my present overtures are highly commendable, and that the circumstance of my being next in the entail of Longbourn estate will be kindly overlooked on your side, and not lead you to reject the offered olive-branch. I cannot be otherwise than concerned at being the means of injuring your amiable daughters, and beg leave to apologise for it, as well as to assure you of my readiness to make them every possible amends—but of this hereafter. If you should have no objection to receive me into your house, I propose myself the satisfaction of waiting on you and your family, Monday, November 18th, by four o’clock, and shall probably trespass on your hospitality till the Saturday se’nnight following, which I can do without any inconvenience, as Lady Catherine is far from objecting to my occasional absence on a Sunday, provided that some other clergyman is engaged to do the duty of the day.—I remain, dear sir, with respectful compliments to your lady and daughters, your well-wisher and friend, “William Collins

November 30 Familiar Well acquainted with; knowing by frequent use One of the reasons we lose our joy and the freshness and newness of things is familiarity. That simply means we get so accustomed to something we no longer see how special it is. It’s like the mother who started reading the Bible to her young son. A few weeks later they were reading from the Gospel of John. When she read John 3:16, her son commented, “Oh, I know this. This is an old one.” Being familiar with a Scripture can do that to us. We can know it so well we feel we know all there is to know about it. It’s the same with the blessings and joys we experience in life. We need to make an effort not to take those things for granted. If we will determine to daily be in awe of God, His Word and His Presence in our lives, we will avoid the trap of familiarity. Bless (affectionately, gratefully praise) the Lord, O my soul, and forget not [one of] all His benefits. PSALM 103:2

Lincoln had called upon his fellow citizens “to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November next, as a day of thanksgiving and praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the Heavens.” Instituted thus “in the midst of a civil war of unequaled magnitude and severity,” this first national Thanksgiving was intended not only as a reminder for people to be grateful for “the blessings of fruitful fields and healthful skies,” but also as an occasion for them to “implore the interposition of the Almighty Hand to heal the wounds of the nation and to restore it, as soon as may be consistent with the Divine purposes, to the full enjoyment of peace, harmony, tranquillity, and Union.

You feel that?” he whispered in my ear. “You see how you got my shit throbbing? Go on and bless me with that nut.

But the Papists are a very wicked crew, too, you know, with confession and all that,’ said Jack. ‘And they tried to blow up Parliament. Lord, how we used to keep up the Fifth of November. One of my very best friends – you would not believe how kind – was so upset when her mother married one that she took to mathematics and Hebrew directly – aleph, beth – though she was the prettiest girl for miles around – taught me navigation – splendid headpiece, bless her. She told me quantities of things about the Papists: I forget it all now, but they are certainly a very wicked crew. There is no trusting them. Look at the rebellion they have just had.

Prior to leaving New York, Washington also signed a proclamation for the first Thanksgiving on November 26, declaring that “Almighty God” should be thanked for the abundant blessings bestowed on the American people, including victory in the war against England, creation of the Constitution, establishment of the new government, and the “tranquillity, union, and plenty” that the country now enjoyed.2

The not-so-dirty secret is that Greece is doing the EU’s bidding and working tirelessly to monitor, punish, isolate, and violently repress refugees, stopping most of them from entering the continent. Frontex quietly supports it. Greece has constructed a network of detention centers on the Greek islands and initiated illegal pushbacks at border crossings and on the Mediterranean. More than 41,000 migrants since 2020 were illegally pushed back, according to the Turkey’s Ombudsman Institution report in 2022, with Greece deploying a range of technological innovations to deter new arrivals.37 During the opening of Greece’s “closed controlled access center” in Kos in November 2021, two Greek Orthodox priests blessed the facility while EU politicians looked on.

NOVEMBER 15 APPROACH PROBLEMS with a light touch. When your mind moves toward a problem area, you tend to focus on that situation so intensely that you lose sight of Me. You pit yourself against the difficulty as if you had to conquer it immediately. Your mind gears up for battle, and your body becomes tense and anxious. Unless you achieve total victory, you feel defeated. There is a better way. When a problem starts to overshadow your thoughts, bring this matter to Me. Talk with Me about it and look at it in the Light of My Presence. This puts some much-needed space between you and your concern, enabling you to see from My perspective. You will be surprised at the results. Sometimes you may even laugh at yourself for being so serious about something so insignificant. You will always face trouble in this life. But more importantly, you will always have Me with you, helping you to handle whatever you encounter. Approach problems with a light touch by viewing them in My revealing Light. Blessed are those who have learned to acclaim you, who walk in the light of your presence, O LORD. —PSALM 89:15 “I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.” —JOHN 16:33

And there is something troubling about the Burrow, something hard to name, maybe something about the low shadow it casts on the vacant lot around sunset, or maybe the smell of its walls after a November rain, so maybe the children-bless them-are right to keep their distance

I may only use my Lord’s name to prayers which he would himself pray if he were in my case. It is a high privilege to be authorised to ask in the name of Jesus as if Jesus himself asked; but our love to him will never allow us to set that name where he would not have set it. Am I asking for that which Jesus approves? Dare I put his seal to my prayer? Then I have that which I seek of the Father. November 15 “My God shall supply all your need according to his riches in glory by Christ Jesus.” Philippians 4:19 PAUL’S God is our God, and will supply all our need. Paul felt sure of this in reference to the Philippians, and we feel sure of it as to ourselves. God will do it, for it is like him: he loves us, he delights to bless us, and it will glorify him to do so. His pity, his power, his love, his faithfulness, all work together that we be not famished. What a measure doth the Lord go by: “According to his riches in glory by Christ Jesus.” The riches of his grace are large, but what shall we say of the riches of his glory? His “riches of glory by Christ Jesus,” who shall form an estimate of this? According

Thurmond Rule,” a largely fictional claim that in presidential-election years the party whose President is in office is supposed to sit on its hands and await the outcome in November. This is named for Senator Strom Thurmond, arch-segregationist to the end; Strom Thurmond, who never saw a wasteful weapons system he didn't want to fund; Strom Thurmond, who attempted to get John Lennon deported; Senator Strom Thurmond, who has no moral standing to be invoked for one blessed thing. If we truly believe that this is a real emergency because these vacancies are denying the opportunity for Americans to be heard when their fundamental rights and liberties are in jeopardy, then we should insist that the Senate not allow the Thurmond rule to be the last word.

The ‘girls’ were the two college students Andi had hired at the beginning of November. They’d been a blessing

Vespers Begin Here V. O God + come to my assistance; R. O Lord, make haste to help me. V. Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, * and to the Holy Ghost. R. As it was in the beginning, is now, * and ever shall be, world without end. Amen. Alleluia Psalms Ant. In that day * the mountains shall drop down sweet wine, and the hills shall flow with milk and honey. Alleluia. Psalm 143(1-8) [1] 143:1 Blessed be the Lord my God, who teacheth my hands to fight, * and my fingers to war.

I do therefore invite my fellow citizens in every part of the United States, and also those who are at sea and those who are sojourning in foreign lands, to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November next, as a day of Thanksgiving and Praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the Heavens. And I recommend to them that while offering up the ascriptions justly due to Him for such singular deliverances and blessings, they do also, with humble penitence for our national perverseness and disobedience, commend to His tender care all those who have become widows, orphans, mourners or sufferers in the lamentable civil strife in which we are unavoidably engaged, and fervently implore the interposition of the Almighty Hand to heal the wounds of the nation and to restore it as soon as may be consistent with the Divine purposes to the full enjoyment of peace, harmony, tranquility and Union.

Visitors to Mason’s Yard in St. James’s will search in vain for Isherwood Fine Arts. They will, however, find the extraordinary Old Master gallery owned by my dear friend Patrick Matthiesen. A brilliant art historian blessed with an infallible eye, Patrick never would have allowed a misattributed work by Artemisia Gentileschi to languish in his storerooms for nearly a half century. The painting depicted in The Cellist does not exist. If it did, it would look a great deal like the one produced by Artemisia’s father, Orazio, that hangs in the National Gallery of Art in Washington. Like Julian Isherwood and his new managing partner, Sarah Bancroft, the inhabitants of my version of London’s art world are wholly fictitious, as are their sometimes-questionable antics. Their midsummer drinking session at Wiltons Restaurant would have been entirely permissible, as the landmark London eatery briefly reopened its doors before a rise in coronavirus infection rates compelled Prime Minister Boris Johnson to shut down all non-essential businesses. Wherever possible, I tried to adhere to prevailing conditions and government-mandated restrictions. But when necessary, I granted myself the license to tell my story without the crushing weight of the pandemic. I chose Switzerland as the primary setting for The Cellist because life there proceeded largely as normal until November 2020. That said, a private concert and reception at the Kunsthaus Zürich, even for a cause as worthy as democracy, likely could not have taken place in mid-October. I offer my profound apologies to the renowned Janine Jansen for the unflattering comparison to Anna Rolfe. Ms. Jansen is rightly regarded as one of her generation’s finest violinists, and Anna, of course, exists only in my imagination. She was introduced in the second Gabriel Allon novel, The English Assassin, along with Christopher Keller. Martin Landesmann, my committed if deeply flawed Swiss financier, made his debut in The Rembrandt Affair. The story of Gabriel’s blood-soaked duel with the Russian arms dealer Ivan Kharkov is told in Moscow Rules and its sequel, The Defector. Devotees of F. Scott Fitzgerald undoubtedly spotted the luminous line from The Great Gatsby that appears in chapter 32 of The Cellist. For the record, I am well aware that the headquarters of Israel’s secret intelligence service is no longer located on King Saul Boulevard in Tel Aviv. There is no safe house in the historic moshav of Nahalal—at least not one that I am aware of—and Gabriel and his family do not live on Narkiss Street in West Jerusalem. Occasionally, however, they can be spotted at Focaccia on Rabbi Akiva Street, one of my favorite restaurants in Jerusalem.

They’re not exactly the most physically imposing people in the world (that’s what happens when you live on nothing but soy lattes and veggie burgers), but the sheer force of their numbers is shocking. They have allowed hate to spread at a rate we haven’t seen since the era of civil rights, when Democrats—the party that founded the KKK, in case you’ve forgotten—would organize lynch mobs and counterprotests all across the South, most of which ended in horrific violence. These people are irrational, hysterical, upset, and out looking for enemies. I should know. As of November 16, 2016, I became one of their top targets. Before the election, I was just a guy who appeared on television every once in a while, went to work, and went home at the end of the day and played with my kids. There were probably a few people who thought I was an asshole because I was blessed to have been born into a wealthy family. But no one was mailing suspicious powder to my home or screaming at me in a restaurant where I was celebrating my brother’s birthday. No one was threatening my life. After the election, I became the guy who receives the second highest number of death threats in the country (according to the Secret Service, second only to my father). And that’s a list that includes senators, former presidents, and ambassadors to several war-torn countries. Here’s what the exploding letter filled with powder that sent my then wife and a member of my Secret Service detail to the hospital said: “You are an awful person. This is why people hate you. You are getting what you deserve. So shut the f—k up.

NOVEMBER 12 THIS IS A TIME OF ABUNDANCE in your life. Your cup runneth over with blessings. After plodding uphill for many weeks, you are now traipsing through lush meadows drenched in warm sunshine. I want you to enjoy to the full this time of ease and refreshment. I delight in providing it for you. Sometimes My children hesitate to receive My good gifts with open hands. Feelings of false guilt creep in, telling them they don’t deserve to be so richly blessed. This is nonsense-thinking because no one deserves anything from Me. My kingdom is not about earning and deserving; it’s about believing and receiving. When a child of Mine balks at accepting My gifts, I am deeply grieved. When you receive My abundant blessings with a grateful heart, I rejoice. My pleasure in giving and your pleasure in receiving flow together in joyous harmony. Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies: thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over. —PSALM 23:5 KJV “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.” —JOHN 3:16 “So I say to you: Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives; he who seeks finds; and to him who knocks, the door will be opened.” —LUKE 11:9–10 He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all—how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things? —ROMANS 8:32

Before I end this letter, I pray heaven to bestow the best of blessings on this house and all that shall hereafter inhabit it. May none but honest and wise men rule under this roof. November 2, 1800.

Today marks the last day of the calendar year. Many of us will celebrate this event with friends, food and partying. Some parishes offer an alternative way to commemorate the coming of the New Year: prayer in church before the Blessed Sacrament. Others of us will opt for sleep. However we celebrate, when the clock strikes midnight (unless we’re already in bed), we will bid farewell to 2014 and welcome in 2015. But before this year ends, let us take a few minutes today to thank God for the obvious blessings of 2014: our loved ones, our spiritual growth, the challenges we faced and worked through, the love we received and bestowed this past year. And let us entrust the painful and ambiguous events of 2014 to God’s love and mercy. Then let us ask God for the grace to live the coming year well, ready and eager to receive grace upon grace from our good God. God of all time, thank you for the graces of this past year and for the graces yet to come.

St Clairs Defeat" "Was November the fourth in the year of ninety-one We had a sore engagement near to Fort Jefferson Sinclair was our commander, which may remembered be But we left nine hundred soldiers in that Western Territory At Bunker’s Hill and in Quebec, where many a hero fell Likewise out on Long Island, it is I the truth can tell But such a dreadful carnage, never did I see As happened all out on the plains, near the River St. Marie Our militia was attacked, just as the day did break And soon were overpowered, and forced into retreat They killed major Ouldham, and major Briggs likewise While horrid yells of anguished souls resounded through the skies Major Butler he was wounded the very second fire His manly bosom swelled with rage they forced him to retire Like one distracted he appeared, when thus exclaim-ed he Ye hounds of Hell shall all be slain but what revenged I’ll be We had not very long been broke, when General Butler fell He cries my boys I’m wounded, pray take me off this field My word says he, what shall we do, we’re wounded every man Go charge your valiant heros and beat them if you can He leaned his back against a tree, and there resigned his breath And like a valiant soldier, sunk into the arms of death When blessed angels did await, his spirit to convey Into celestial fields, he did quickly bend his way We charged again and took our ground, which did our hearts elate But there we did not tarry long, they soon made us retreat They killed our major Ferguson, which caused his men to cry Stand to your guns says valiant Ford, we’ll fight until we die Our cannon balls exhausted, artillery men all slain Our musketeers and riflemen, their fire they did sustain Three hours more we fought like men, and they were forced to yield While three hundred bloody warriors lay stretched across the filed Says colonel Gibson to his men, my boys be not dismayed I’m sure that true Virginians were never yet afraid Ten thousand deaths I’d rather die, than they should gain this field With that he got a fatal shot, causing him to yield Says major Clark, my heros, we can no longer stand We shall strive to form in order, and retreat the best we can The word retreat being passed around, they raised a dreadful cry Then helter skelter through the woods like wolves and sheep they fly We left the wounded on the field, O heavens what a shock! And many bones were shattered, and strewn across the rock With scalping knives and tomahawks, they robbed some of their breath While raging flames of torment, tortured other men to death Was November the fourth in the year of ninety-one We had a sore engagement near to Fort Jefferson Sinclair was our commander, which may remembered be But we left nine hundred soldiers in that Western Territory