Thanksgiving

Grateful For How God Made Me

I’m seeing “30 days of thanks,” “30 days of thanksgiving” everywhere this year. They are programs encouraging people to identify one thing they are thankful for every day over the course of 30 days. It seems everyone is doing “30 days of thanksgiving.” At least everyone on Facebook…

But we don’t need computer games, of course, to prod us to count our blessings. This season invites thankfulness, encourages us to count our blessings, to be grateful. Gratitude is a very good thing. And certainly each one of us has way more than 30 things to be grateful for.

Some of you may remember that last year I created a scheme with five stages of thanksgiving. Gratitude was stage two, one up from clueless entitlement. Stage three was donor appreciation— being grateful that someone has given us what we have. Stages four and five involve us making a response. Expressing our thanksgiving to the donor and finally sharing with others what we’ve been given.

But back to gratitude. These 30 day projects are good. We need to count our blessings. It occurs to me that we probably cycle through stages 2 through 5 over and over again. But we need to start with gratitude.

Reading what people have posted on Facebook, it’s mostly what you’d expect. People are thankful for family, the beauty of nature, freedom, friendship, the Thanksgiving feast or a favorite food. We all have much to be grateful for. I want to take that sort of list and stretch it just a bit.

One. In addition to gratitude for the abundance of the Thanksgiving table… In addition to gratitude for all of the people who planted and tended and transported that food to our tables…. In addition to gratitude for fertile soil and refreshing rains that nurture the growth of the food that sustains us… in addition to gratitude for these things, I’m grateful that God created us with senses of taste and smell. God created us with a capacity to enjoy food, beyond just eating it. I’m grateful for all of our senses, but Thanksgiving evokes taste and smell in particular. Smells and tastes that bring us joy; that nurture our souls as well as our bodies. And because we have the capacity to taste and see and smell, we also have the promise our senses may bring us new tastes, new joys yet ahead.

Two. In addition to gratitude for the blessings of the particular family members and friends who are a part of my life, I am grateful that God created us with the capacity and the yearning for friendship and love. God created us with a desire and an ability to form relationships. Relationships that enable us to be more than we could ever be on our own. And it is this capacity for relationships that enables to know God with us in our lives.

Three. In addition to gratitude for all of God’s creation, I am grateful for the spark of creativity that is within us all. Within us because we have been created in the image of the creator God. We can create. Creativity is a part of who we all are. This means we can be co-creators with God. New music, new art, new technical wonders are yet to be created.

Four. In addition to gratitude for the freedoms I enjoy in particular as a citizen of this country, I am grateful that God created human beings with a passion for justice and freedom. We are free because God created human beings with a passion for justice and freedom. And because God created us with a passion for justice and freedom this ensures that gratitude for freedom will not stop with us today in this country. In the future other peoples will come to have occasion to be thankful for new freedom and justice.

This Thanksgiving, I am grateful for all God has given me, but perhaps more profoundly, I am grateful for how God has created all of us. I am grateful that we have been created with the capacity for joy and wonder and the yearning to nurture our souls. And I’m grateful that we have been created in such a way as we have reason and cause to hope. To hope for new joys and wonders, to hope for richer relationships and an ever deepening faith. To hope for justice and peace and the coming of God’s kingdom.