earthy Thanks
A friend, a fellow clergyman, is an extraordinarily compassionate man who, when he “says the blessing,” at a meal gathering, closes praying that we remember those who have nothing to eat today, tonight. This always so touches me that it causes me to pause in a state that I can only describe as momentarily stunned, perhaps because it brings the, what? euphoria? of the instant occasion back down to earthy reality.
His petition comes to mind this morning of Thanksgiving Day as I scroll down glancing through the one-liners on each news email. Those still devastated by the hurricanes, by the wildfires, by the mass shootings and this the first “holiday marker” to get past enroute back to life that can never be the same again. Add them to the innumerable wrongs, evil we did, have done, do to indigenous peoples since white men set foot on the continent and began our ravenously greedy rampage. I don’t mean to blog a downer on, along with The Fourth, our most holy national holiday, but if it comes out that way, so be it.
In grief and grieving there are “firsts” to get through. In my own part of our culture, such firsts include Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Years, the Birthday, Easter, the Fourth, the anniversary of “The Day it Happened” and some other events such as maybe Wedding Anniversary, or “The Day I Found Out” that is sometimes called "D-Day." There have been and are some of those in my life, but so far they are mostly things that are ordinary to every human life (and for that I give Thanks today). But there are other humans, many, for whom today brings memories, stirs grief inconsolable. I’ll remember those humans today, but silently from the depths of my heart so as not to suppress the joy of our own family gathering, togetherness, celebration and Thanksgiving with those whom I love most under the sun.
DThos+