A gracious plenty

I heard a person repeat a phrase of his mother's - "a gracious plenty".

If you were reared in the South, the saying is probably old hat.

As a northerner, I had never heard it.

But it fell immediately upon fallow soil within me.

I looked it up and I think it most often meant to visitors - stay for a meal- we can easily share.

I think I have often heard - "Stay, there's plenty of food."

But what a difference to the ear and heart is "gracious plenty."

Not only do we have enough food and space, they are laced with grace.

Though our country is riddled with disease, dissention and random slaughter, it is soothing to imagine with a little more conscious effort to share our gracious plenty we might feed our mutually starving souls.