I've heard it said about our prayers for meals, which is that dogs can even wag their tails in appreciation for a meal. I have a dog that wags its tail especially when I come home and he jumps a lot also then too. Not so much for food, walks, or for taking him to the veterinarian. Treats, I've bought lots of treats and he doesn't like them. So, he's picky. But, he likes it when we sit together. He is happy, he smiles when he is happy, he sleeps on my dirty laundry, wants to sleep in my bed, but not so much, only for about 15 minutes then he jumps off, but only when it's thundering or fireworks outside. He has to sit with me every time I go to the bathroom and to shower or well, yea. He is there, But, he doesn't have a tail, so there's that. Maybe, he doesn't like his food. I don't blame him.
I was always critical of the idea that someone giving or "saying" a prayer to God thanking him solely for the food. Never mentioning the "axe" hard work done by the household in the secular world for simple wages and menial jobs, the hours of preparation the meal took, the farmers who planted and took a financial risk on a crop, the seasonal workers who traveled and harvested the crops, the truckers who transported the crops, the oil companies, and their workers who provided the oil-based products for the equipment and trucks transporting the harvest to market, the fertilizer companies, the harvest equipment manufacturing companies like John Deere and Massey Ferguson plus, the water well drilling companies and their suppliers, the seed growers, etc, you get the idea. How about the companies and men, even the governments that built the roads for the trucks to transport the produce. How about giving the taxpayers a round of applause for paying taxes, (a real sacrifice), to build and maintain an infrastructure for commerce so we can have watermelons and pecans from Georgia, and oranges from Florida transported on railroads to anywhere in the world?
So, if we thanked everyone involved in a meal, prayers would be really long, like prayers at the end of a convention. "We want to thank the non-non-anti- but-union workers for working for no wages or benefits cleaning the bathrooms for free during this xx day convention". Let's give a round of applause to the workers that normally work at this arena and whose families depend on their work here, but we cut out of paying wages to them by having free uninsured labor clean the restrooms, all the while in their "Christian dress" wearing sometimes cheap suits and dresses and at other times very nice suits and dresses. We demonstrate our "Christiansoness by the nicety of our dress while cleaning toilets". Clearly, we are more spiritual than Notre Dame that burnt years ago. Further, But, we saved you, peasants, three cents per publisher attending this convention and all you had to do was while attending this convention is spend 1/3 of your time maintaining the property that was rented. Think of it as a working vacation!!
