Streams of Mercy
This week we’ll celebrate Thanksgiving Day. As we grow older, this day takes on more meaning. We remember as children telling the story of the Pilgrims, of dressing up in school, or looking at pictures of a peaceful time between the Native Americans who brought gifts of food and friendship to the struggling community of European immigrants. When I taught First Grade, we always sang: “When the Pilgrims came to America, ‘twas cold as cold could be; They nearly froze that winter, but they said, at least we’re free; We’ll build a church and then a school, to God on high we’ll pray, and when their neighbors gathered round, they had Thanksgiving Day.” Little children in my class wore paper pilgrim hats and collars and some wore vests and feathered headbands – to be those neighbors gathered round!
Each year we reflect on the years of celebrating Thanksgiving Day in different homes and with different folks. The first time we had Thanksgiving after my Grandmother Shannon died, the day felt very different. I always remembered her coming to make the rolls, to be sure they were done to perfection! My own children speak with love and longing about Thanksgiving dinners at their Nana’s house. We might even remember a time we helped to serve a community meal to strangers and persons off the streets. All the ones we’ve ever shared this meal with become our communion of saints at the Thanksgiving table and we remember them as we gather, those unseen guests at our tables with us, year after year.
This year, Thanksgiving Day comes in the midst of a worldwide pandemic, a season of racial reckoning and political dispute, ongoing struggles to make it financially, to stay well, and to deal with the effects of months of being isolated and separated from much of what gave our lives meaning and joy. This year, Thanksgiving Day comes as we try to regain a sense of trust in a world of misinformation and disinformation. This year Thanksgiving Day comes with 250,000 empty chairs at family tables in homes of our neighbors nationwide – and many of us will be alone by choice, for any number of reasons.
We are called to thank God for the whole of life- the good days and the more difficult ones, our greatest joys and our deepest sorrows, and it’s not always an easy thing to do. “In everything give thanks,” I Thessalonians 5:18 reminds us. Not FOR all things, but IN all things. The Jewish people formulated blessing for every circumstance in their lives. If it was good news, their prayer was “Blessed be the God who is good and who does wondrous things.” If news was bad, they would pray, “Blessed be the God who makes haste to help me.” As far as they were concerned, they had a duty to pronounce a blessing on the bad in life as well as the good, because all of life comes from God.
Our challenge this week of Thanksgiving, is to give thanks for the mixed blessings of life, knowing that God is working in all things for good, and resting in the assurance that God’s love will never let us go. Have a blessed Thanksgiving!
Elizabeth