thanksgiving column

I’ve noticed a number of people  have been using an invitation on Facebook to write down an element of thanksgiving this month. That strikes me as a worthy spiritual exercise.(I wonder what it says about me that I so consistently mistype spiritual). I do not want to come off as one of those gratitude scolds who try to make us feel guilty that we are not exuberant enough in our  capacity and willingness to give thanks. I do hope that the upcoming holiday is allowed some room to breathe a bit.

Thanksgiving has long been my favorite holiday. i was pretty young when I realized that it was different than most of the holidays. It did not have the commercial appeal of the other holidays. I loved how our village’s churches got together and had our only ecumenical service for Thanksgiving. I liked getting things at the store for last minute preparations that weren’t on the grocery list. I loved how warm the house was with all of the baking and cooking. My mother shared her hypothesis that her barely thawed turkey was slow in its roasting because all of the ovens that were on in the neighborhood were causing a brownout.

I have grown so tired of vulgar end times predictions that scan the world for bad news in hopes that Christ will return soon, according to the recipe they allegedly have discovered in Scripture. It blinds us to the remarkable good we now see. I want to prepare a list of some public events for which I am grateful. In the year I was born, Brown v. Bd was decided and the Salk vaccine was being tested and found effective. I have lived to see a biracial president elected and terrible wars ended, Osama Bin Laden killed, and the Berlin Wall falling without a shot being fired. I have lived to see MRI available to scan a body without exploratory surgery. In my lifetime we moved from the image of Donna Reed to women in boardrooms and now 20 female Senators. Cataract surgery is outpatient but when I was a child it was a six week recovery. A computer opens a world with just a few clicks.remember when we had to retype an entire page for one error?

In the midst of these marvels, we live more in a culture of complaint than open-eyed wonder.We adjust quickly to the miraculous, it seems.We drum our fingers in anxious boredom waiting for a PDF to load or the ATM to spit out bills.I often resort to a bit of wisdom:”we rarely solve problems in this life, but we can hope to create a better set of problems.” I would like to test a guess that complaint as a default standard of approaching the world does inhibit thanksgiving and gratitude.

I would ask our readers to consider working out a special prayer around the table this year. In so doing, Take a moment to admire the effort and artistry behind a meal and the relative ease we procure all of that bounty. Please consider with some care some of the people and things for which you are grateful, maybe especially the those  that have entered your life without a lot of planning and effort, but as sheer gift. A good prayer can be composed, or at least its outline considered, and does not have to be the first thing that comes from brain to mouth. Rummage around in memory and select places where those who are not around the table with us have brought light and joy into your life. Look around your table and mention, acknowledge the attributes in each one that you most admire.