Glorious Artist, the sky was alive with hope this morning: a brilliant, splashy pink canvas streaked with orange and ribbons of gold and butter yellow. Muted purple and green danced with one another, as if to say, “Look at us!” And it brought joy to so many…

Musicians On Call volunteers in the USA have performed for more than a million patients across the country since the organization’s inception in 1999. As the nation’s leading provider of live music in hospitals, Musicians On Call has touched the lives of veterans, hospice patients, and children diagnosed with terminal illness.

May your presence in the music relieve pain and stress, calming the fear of the unknown.

Forever Is Now, a contemporary art exhibition that brings together artists from around the world, is celebrating its sixth annual exhibition at the 4,500-year-old UNESCO World Heritage Site of the Pyramids of Giza and the surrounding plateau in Egypt. This year, French, American, Chinese, British, Jamaican, and Egyptian artists gather to honor the plateau’s ancient authority, with this new chapter distinguished by the female artists leading its vision.

You invite us to witness the beauty of art with wonder and awe, recognizing the splendor that accompanies variety.

A low-cost plastic maternal drape is saving thousands of women from dying of postpartum hemorrhage, the leading cause of maternal death worldwide, with a simple device now used across Africa. Pioneered in Nigeria, studies show that using this pouch can reduce life-threatening bleeding after vaginal births by up to 60%.

May the spirit of Shiphrah and Puah be with the people of Africa as they invest in maternal health and safe childbirth practices. We give thanks for the creativity that blossomed into a life-saving tool.

British author M. John Harrison’s post-apocalyptic novel “The End of Everything” has won the 2026 Booker Prize, considered one of the most prestigious literary awards for a work of fiction. At 81, he is the oldest author to be awarded the honor. Despite his bleak view of the world, Harrison said that while writing the book (over nearly a decade), he felt a “sense of possibility.”

You inspire our curiosity and a quest for a life filled with art, music, and literature. You introduce us to the creative beings who use the gifts you have bestowed upon them. May we follow their lead.

We honor the life of Ursula von Rydingsvard, a sculptor best known for complex, timeless, monumental forms constructed from hundreds of cedar beams. She died on October 27, 2026, at the age of 84. Born in Germany, Rydingsvard’s father was Ukrainian, and her mother Polish. The family reached the USA in 1950 after spending several years living in displaced-persons camps after WWI. In 2013, her 19-foot, 12,000-pound bronze sculpture, “Ona,” was installed in front of Barclays Center in Brooklyn. Rydingsvard said, “You don’t have to pay a fee or enter a museum, and no guard will tell you not to touch it. I would actually love people to touch it.”

Thank you for the many treasures that Ursula gifted the world; the many sculptures that we can visit both in print and on paper, and her words that we can live by: “My biggest hope is that I get more courage, I get more trust in myself, I get more faith, that I’m able to do things that maybe I wasn’t able to do before.”

May we delight in The Arts, in all their forms, and praise Your name, forever and ever. Amen.