Wednesday, November 26, 2003

Thanksgiving in despair and joy

By SALLIE SATTERTHWAITE
sallies@juno.com

This has been an extraordinary year. But we say that every year.

Has there ever been a year’s end when we could say, Peace reigns in every nation, disease has been conquered, and hunger is no more?

It hasn’t happened yet.

This has been an extraordinary year, its contrasts of emotions swinging from despair in public places, to joy in privacy.

The four horsemen still ride with their message of Famine, Pestilence, Destruction, and Death. And the most ancient of enemies are so crazed with hatred that they willingly, eagerly, kill themselves in order to kill each other.

More than 400 of our brightest and best lie dead of an invented war, remembered only by their families and communities. No solemn reception of caskets, overspread with our nation’s flag and flanked by honor guards, brought home to their grieving families. The “commander-in-chief” was off fund-raising.

Oh God, it is hard to offer thanks in the face of such sorrow. We somehow feel that we are entitled to the riches we take so much for granted. We’ve been good people, we do what is right, so we deserve the bounty with which our lives are blessed.

Forgive us, Lord, for believing that you are on our side, and that what we do in the name of peace is justified by our “goodness.” Forgive us for our arrogance, our lack of humility, our notions of entitlement.

Forgive us our failure to give thanks. (Although you must be grateful to us when we do what Kennesaw did last week, when citizens gathered and “... passed a resolution supporting God.”)

Now comes a day of Thanksgiving, a time of families drawing closer together as though to ward off the deepening darkness. At too many tables, there will be an empty chair. In too many families, thanks will be supplanted by sorrow.

“God is great, and God is good, and we thank him for this food,” says the smallest among us as we duck our heads briefly. (In other families, the patriarch will voice his thanks until the food gets cold.)

O God, we give thanks for our comforts and full bellies; teach us to share with those who have neither.

O God, we give thanks for warm, dry homes; tempt us to wield hammer and saw to build shelter for those who need it.

O God, thanks for the relative safety of our streets; teach us to appreciate those who protect us night and day.

O God, thanks for our health and well-being; teach us to be supportive toward those whose test results bring bad news.

O God, thanks for teachers and preachers and all those who light candles in the darkness; teach us to feed our children’s minds and souls with bright virtue.

And in one particular family let thanks be shouted aloud for a new member who was not even dreamed of when we gathered last year. Who knew Samuel then? Who would have dreamed there would be a Samuel with us this year, a full-fledged member of the family, a full-fledged citizen of the world?

O God, thank you for surprises like Samuel. Thank you for the tide of love that washes over and under and around his household and its family near and far because of him.

Thank you for sending love in such incredible abundance. From where does it come? Who brings it?

This tiny bit of humankind? He comes borne neither on wings nor on the beautiful feet the prophet promised would bring good tidings and publish peace. He has neither strength nor wisdom, yet we see him as a gift from God, as a pledge that life will go on.

Thank you, O God, for gifts like Samuel. He is our link to the future. One day he will finish the prayer for those gathered around the thankful table:

“By his hand we all are fed. Give us, Lord, our daily bread.”

Amen, and amen.