Giving Thanks
November 22, 2024
Give thanks for the whole mess of challenges alongside the blessings that pop up like flowers through the cracks in the pavement. — Mary Davis
The American Thanksgiving holiday is next week, and in a few days Bobby and I will fly to northern Arizona to spend the week with our kids. It will be cold! There might be snow! I’m actually grateful for the cold, rainy weather here today because it gives me a chance to practice.
Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you. — 1 Thessalonians 5:16-18
When I was a kid in Sunday School, the teachers carefully pointed out that the Bible verse says we are to give thanks IN all things, not FOR all things. Whatever I might be missing of the original intention of that text in its original language, it’s a good lesson for me to keep in mind, given some of the events of this month.
So, while continuing my general boycott of the news, I turn my attention toward the blessings around me, breathing them in, and giving thanks.
A few of the blessings of this month
Many days of perfect fall weather—all to my liking, nothing to for me to resist or complain about, as I walked and enjoyed . . .
The fall colors. The dying leaves form a landscape of green, golden, and red more vividly in some years, while in others they are just drab brown. This has been a colorful year.
My ancestors and all the lessons I continue to receive from them. Especially during this month I’m remembering my father. There are only a few things he explicitly taught me, and they stick in my memory. For instance, he taught me the logically right way to wash a glass: it’s not the inside, where the milk or juice was, that needs scrubbing, but the outside, especially the rim, where your mouth was.
And he taught me the rule of law. When I was a teenager my dad, a history professor, gave me a lecture on it because he knew that the rule of law was foundational to this nation’s governance, and he wanted me to know it, too.
Two animals, beloved in our family, now gone from our houses and fields, forever alive in our hearts.
Achilles, Rachel's cat, 3/28/11 - 11/14/24 - Cheyenne , Chris and Steve’s mare, who lived long and well and died Nov. 17.
I’ll close with part of a poem by Wendell Berry. Thanks to Sarah Bessey, whose Field Notes this week moved me to look it up.
Manifesto: The Mad Farmer Liberation Front
from The Country of Marriage, 1973, Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, Inc. © by owner
... So, friends, every day do something
that won’t compute. Love the Lord.
Love the world. Work for nothing.
Take all that you have and be poor.
Love someone who does not deserve it.
Denounce the government and embrace
the flag. Hope to live in that free
republic for which it stands. ...
Ask the questions that have no answers.
Invest in the millennium. Plant sequoias.
Say that your main crop is the forest
that you did not plant,
that you will not live to harvest.
Say that the leaves are harvested
when they have rotted into the mold.
Call that profit. Prophesy such returns.
Put your faith in the two inches of humus
that will build under the trees
every thousand years.
Listen to carrion – put your ear
close, and hear the faint chattering
of the songs that are to come.
Expect the end of the world. Laugh.
Laughter is immeasurable. Be joyful
though you have considered all the facts. ...