(sarahgardner)What a lovely idea Thanksgiving is. An ode to gratitude, a tribute to bounty and blessedness. I think it is our purest holiday, and right now if you even try and pull that "Thanksgiving was invented by Hallmark and exists for consumerists" crap, please just don't. Sweet potato casserole is one of the few things in this life that cannot be corrupted by the hands of capitalism or the Coca Cola Company, so shush.
Whether you like it or not, Thanksgiving comes around once a year, whether you have just gotten engaged to Zac Efron and won a new wardrobe from "What Not to Wear," or if you have just lost your job and heard a really horrifying story about a terrorist act in Mumbai, India on the news last night. In any case, here before you is a holiday about thankfulness. Here you are. Be thankful.
One of my favorite things about God, probably in my Top 10 Favorite Things About God list, is that He wisely and kindly instructs us, "BE thankful." Not "FEEL thankful," but "BE thankful." This is the beauty of religion, the beauty of liturgy, which is something that often gets lost in what is ugly about religion--that is, people who cruelly tell others that they are not worthy and they are not loved because of their gender, sexual orientation, or beliefs about abortion and taxes...or, extreme fundamentalists who revere suicide bombing as a solution to some enormously complex problem. I can understand the frustration and skepticism with the Church at large, and for that matter any organized religion, but I think something deeply missed by a life of spirituality rather than a life of religion is this beautiful beautiful thing called ritual.
When a member of a traditional Jewish community dies, the relatives express initial grief by tearing their clothing: a tear made over the heart for a parent, or right side of chest for a different relative. For the next 11 months, the mourners recite the Kaddish, a prayer which does not ask for consolation but rather exalts God, opening "Glorified and sanctified be God's great name throughout the world which He has created according to His will."
In the midst of great pain, what are we to do? Where are we to even begin? How do you start life after one has ended? I suppose that tearing your clothes is not a bad way to kick off the process. There are so many moments in life where it can hurt to live, hurt to move, when time seems so inescapably heavy that you can barely think about living through the next minute much less an entire lifetime of minutes yet to be broken into. But having a place to begin, having a ritual that tells you what to do, having to recite the same affirmation every day whether you're in too much emotional pain to speak or not...this is how you begin to get through.
There are a ton of things in life I will never feel like doing, but I need to do. Eternally loving a husband, for instance, seems like an impossible task. And I'm almost positive that it is. And this is why husbands and wives might say "I love you" every day, even if they don't mean it: it's a ritual that keeps them progressing, keeps them promising, keeps them connected even when the fleeting feeling has long-since disappeared.
This is why some very smart folks back in the early days of the Church wrote some truly excellent prayers. How many Sundays have I gone to church with no desire to be there, with no feeling of love for God and my fellow man? Thousands! I'm rarely in the mood to confess, I'm rarely just dying to give my thanks to God, especially during a week when I've been sick and yelled at by my boss and would give anything for some hummus that doesn't taste like baby food and I'm missing my favorite American holiday. But God isn't really interested in whether I feel thankful or not; I'm going to have to recite the Eucharistic Prayer which says "Let us give thanks to the Lord our God," and has for the last bajillion years or so, give or take. And people have been saying this for the last bajillion years or so, every Sunday: through wars, plagues, deaths, break-ups, broken hearts, sore backs, lost pets, terrorist acts, hurtful words.
Ritual is sometimes the only thing that can get me through a day. In Chile, my Sunday ritual has not included church so much (I'm hopeful that God understands my desire to travel on my day off, and at times the need to sleep through the effects of red wine from the night before), but I have found that these little moments of liturgy are the most important of moments here: my quiet walk home at night, my hopeful mornings. The smell of ceylon tea in the early mornings before class is delightful incense, my inspiring and laugh-filled coffee dates with Caitlin a meaningful communion.
Repetitions can be as close and meaningful to us as friends, during the lonely times when a routine morning bus ride can bring with it familiar faces and a reliable journey despite the uncertainties of the day ahead, or during the homesick nights when the nightly walk back to your little Chilean house allows you to play familiar music and see familiar neighbors, reminding you that you do indeed have a home here.
Today I am told to be thankful. Not only by whoever invented Thanksgiving (which, I repeat, was not Coca Cola), but also by God and the Church Fathers, who were well-aware that practicing a religion means practicing it through ritual--not only when you are feeling happy or feeling particularly in need of redemption. Not only when you are feeling grateful, or feeling loving, but every day. I'm sure that Jewish mourners occasionally have their down days during those 11 months, and feel like yelling obscenities rather than praising God's name, but to have something to recite, to have something to rely on, is probably the biggest blessing of all during such a time.
So yay America, for having a holiday that instructs gratitude, whether we have a looneybin moron for a president who led us into a stupid war that everyone hates and ruined everyone's lives, whether our economy sucks and no one can get a job, or whether we are coping from yet another terrorist attack and wondering if anything is dependable in the world. I cannot count on my emotions to lead me to thankfulness; today I spent much less time being grateful than I spent stewing in my frustration with my job and Spanish skills and lack of soymilk on this entire continent, not to mention the daily horrors on the news. But today we are instructed toward thankfulness whether we feel it or not, and when you truly stop and look around, this life is pretty amazing.
Happy Thanksgiving, to friends close and friends far, whether this is your springtime or harvest (literally or figuratively), thank you thank you thank you.
Most gracious God, by whose knowledge the depths are broken up and the clouds drop down the dew: We yield thee hearty thanks and praise for the return of seed time and harvest, for the increase of the ground and the gathering in of its fruits, and for all other blessings of thy merciful providence bestowed upon this nation and people. And, we beseech thee, give us a just sense of these great mercies, such as may appear in our lives by a humble, holy, and obedient walking before thee all our days; through Jesus Christ our Lord, to whom, with thee and the Holy Ghost be all glory and honor, world without end. Amen.
--Thanksgiving for the Harvest, from the Book of Common Prayer
Whether you like it or not, Thanksgiving comes around once a year, whether you have just gotten engaged to Zac Efron and won a new wardrobe from "What Not to Wear," or if you have just lost your job and heard a really horrifying story about a terrorist act in Mumbai, India on the news last night. In any case, here before you is a holiday about thankfulness. Here you are. Be thankful.
One of my favorite things about God, probably in my Top 10 Favorite Things About God list, is that He wisely and kindly instructs us, "BE thankful." Not "FEEL thankful," but "BE thankful." This is the beauty of religion, the beauty of liturgy, which is something that often gets lost in what is ugly about religion--that is, people who cruelly tell others that they are not worthy and they are not loved because of their gender, sexual orientation, or beliefs about abortion and taxes...or, extreme fundamentalists who revere suicide bombing as a solution to some enormously complex problem. I can understand the frustration and skepticism with the Church at large, and for that matter any organized religion, but I think something deeply missed by a life of spirituality rather than a life of religion is this beautiful beautiful thing called ritual.
When a member of a traditional Jewish community dies, the relatives express initial grief by tearing their clothing: a tear made over the heart for a parent, or right side of chest for a different relative. For the next 11 months, the mourners recite the Kaddish, a prayer which does not ask for consolation but rather exalts God, opening "Glorified and sanctified be God's great name throughout the world which He has created according to His will."
In the midst of great pain, what are we to do? Where are we to even begin? How do you start life after one has ended? I suppose that tearing your clothes is not a bad way to kick off the process. There are so many moments in life where it can hurt to live, hurt to move, when time seems so inescapably heavy that you can barely think about living through the next minute much less an entire lifetime of minutes yet to be broken into. But having a place to begin, having a ritual that tells you what to do, having to recite the same affirmation every day whether you're in too much emotional pain to speak or not...this is how you begin to get through.
There are a ton of things in life I will never feel like doing, but I need to do. Eternally loving a husband, for instance, seems like an impossible task. And I'm almost positive that it is. And this is why husbands and wives might say "I love you" every day, even if they don't mean it: it's a ritual that keeps them progressing, keeps them promising, keeps them connected even when the fleeting feeling has long-since disappeared.
This is why some very smart folks back in the early days of the Church wrote some truly excellent prayers. How many Sundays have I gone to church with no desire to be there, with no feeling of love for God and my fellow man? Thousands! I'm rarely in the mood to confess, I'm rarely just dying to give my thanks to God, especially during a week when I've been sick and yelled at by my boss and would give anything for some hummus that doesn't taste like baby food and I'm missing my favorite American holiday. But God isn't really interested in whether I feel thankful or not; I'm going to have to recite the Eucharistic Prayer which says "Let us give thanks to the Lord our God," and has for the last bajillion years or so, give or take. And people have been saying this for the last bajillion years or so, every Sunday: through wars, plagues, deaths, break-ups, broken hearts, sore backs, lost pets, terrorist acts, hurtful words.
Ritual is sometimes the only thing that can get me through a day. In Chile, my Sunday ritual has not included church so much (I'm hopeful that God understands my desire to travel on my day off, and at times the need to sleep through the effects of red wine from the night before), but I have found that these little moments of liturgy are the most important of moments here: my quiet walk home at night, my hopeful mornings. The smell of ceylon tea in the early mornings before class is delightful incense, my inspiring and laugh-filled coffee dates with Caitlin a meaningful communion.
Repetitions can be as close and meaningful to us as friends, during the lonely times when a routine morning bus ride can bring with it familiar faces and a reliable journey despite the uncertainties of the day ahead, or during the homesick nights when the nightly walk back to your little Chilean house allows you to play familiar music and see familiar neighbors, reminding you that you do indeed have a home here.
Today I am told to be thankful. Not only by whoever invented Thanksgiving (which, I repeat, was not Coca Cola), but also by God and the Church Fathers, who were well-aware that practicing a religion means practicing it through ritual--not only when you are feeling happy or feeling particularly in need of redemption. Not only when you are feeling grateful, or feeling loving, but every day. I'm sure that Jewish mourners occasionally have their down days during those 11 months, and feel like yelling obscenities rather than praising God's name, but to have something to recite, to have something to rely on, is probably the biggest blessing of all during such a time.
So yay America, for having a holiday that instructs gratitude, whether we have a looneybin moron for a president who led us into a stupid war that everyone hates and ruined everyone's lives, whether our economy sucks and no one can get a job, or whether we are coping from yet another terrorist attack and wondering if anything is dependable in the world. I cannot count on my emotions to lead me to thankfulness; today I spent much less time being grateful than I spent stewing in my frustration with my job and Spanish skills and lack of soymilk on this entire continent, not to mention the daily horrors on the news. But today we are instructed toward thankfulness whether we feel it or not, and when you truly stop and look around, this life is pretty amazing.
Happy Thanksgiving, to friends close and friends far, whether this is your springtime or harvest (literally or figuratively), thank you thank you thank you.
Most gracious God, by whose knowledge the depths are broken up and the clouds drop down the dew: We yield thee hearty thanks and praise for the return of seed time and harvest, for the increase of the ground and the gathering in of its fruits, and for all other blessings of thy merciful providence bestowed upon this nation and people. And, we beseech thee, give us a just sense of these great mercies, such as may appear in our lives by a humble, holy, and obedient walking before thee all our days; through Jesus Christ our Lord, to whom, with thee and the Holy Ghost be all glory and honor, world without end. Amen.
--Thanksgiving for the Harvest, from the Book of Common Prayer
2 comments:
I am thankful for your blog....very thankful.
Also, of course, for you.
I heard about your blog through a friend, and read this post first. It is beautiful. It speaks to the deepest desires of my soul, reminding me of how I want to live and who I want to be. It gives me so much hope to read your thoughts because for awhile I thought the only people who thought this way were one of my professors and a few of the students he impacted. I am encouraged to see that God puts this in the hearts of His/Her children everywhere. I appreciate this blog more than I can explain in this comment. Thank you for writing it. Thank you for being open to the heart of God breaking into the heart of (wo)man. ありがとうございます。
Post a Comment