Thanksgiving

 Since the end of May we’ve been looking at Words, Story, and how that impacts our Action. Names are the words we use to identify each other, the things in our surroundings, and yes, the Un-Nameable, Un-definable Holy One.

Today is Thanksgiving—a day set apart to be thankful and remember our blessings. It’s become all about the food and the shopping and the football, perhaps, but the core should still be pausing to say ‘Thank you’ for our blessings, and for each other.

I hope you can find time on the day, or sometime during the weekend to pause and think about what you are really, deeply thankful for in your life, your family, your work, your surroundings, your blessings. Brother Curtis of the Society of St. John, Evangelist notes that “’sitting at table’ with someone, sharing food or drink, makes a social statement about yourself and your guest. Eating and drinking is our most basic human need, one that is shared across gender, race, culture, language, orientation, religion, education, or age…But the invitation of the table can invite us beyond our boundaries. To share food is an experience of being one with another. This opens a possibility to find commonality with those with whom we might disagree. To sit at table with others is to experience the humanity that we share, even with those whom we might consider as “other.” A conversation at table can be a disarming, delightful venue for meeting our neighbors. We are all neighbors to one another. At table with one another, we begin from a point of unity: our common need for our thirst to be quenched and our hunger to be satisfied”…Breaking Bread: How Eating Together Makes Us Whole – SSJE                                             

Next Sunday is the First Sunday of Advent, and the start of a series about Empowering one another to act in a way that builds relationships and community. I’ll be borrowing from some of the Advent and Christmas resources of The Episcopal Church, which invite us to remember: “Advent is a season of preparation: shopping for gifts, decorating our homes and sanctuaries. Advent is also a time to prepare our hearts and communities for the coming of Christ, the Almighty God who came among us poor and homeless, a stranger and a child. There may be no better time to reflect on how we [all] embrace the Holy One who continues to draw near in the neighbor, the stranger, the refugee, or the one who seems most “other” to you. It is the ideal season to commit to becoming Beloved Community and growing loving, liberating, life-giving relationships across the human family of God.”