Thanksgiving 2024
As I built a post-election gratitude list and remembered a question routinely asked by the minister of music in a church I pastored.
He’d stand behind the big Baptist pulpit and ask this question of his sleepy and aging congregation:
“Would you rather be in the best prison in America or here in church today?”
He used the question to roust our aging congregation and inspire them to sing louder. He often used it at the Thanksgiving service because he felt like it gave congregants a bit of gratitude perspective.
I find the reasoning a bit haggard as it’s the same kind of sermonic reasoning ministers use every year that urge us to remember those less fortunate.
I ask you, can’t we just hold the guilt this year and sit back and relax with our holiday pie?
Newspaper columnists like myself, and most especially ministers, of whom I am both, try to make you see that your life is not as bad as it could be.
This approach comes off sounding a lot like a parent trying to get their kid to eat turnips. “At least we have turnips and broccoli on our table,” goes the paternal reasoning, “I’ll bet the kids in Godawfulstan wish they had turnips.” That line of reasoning never did much for me.
The problem with that perspective is that gratitude and thankfulness has never been about comparing your good fortune to the misfortunes of others. Thanksgiving will never be about trying to equalize the imbalance of those fortunes.
Thanksgiving isn’t just about being grateful you don’t have a loved one deployed to a war-torn country. It’s also about being thankful we have brave service members who are willing to serve when their country calls.
Thanksgiving isn’t just about being grateful you aren’t poor. It is also about being grateful you have resources to give to the poor.
It is not only about being grateful you aren’t hungry. It is also about sharing your gratitude with the hungry.
Being truly thankful is not about comparing what you have with what others do not have. It is not about being glad your home is not a shanty cardboard shack under the freeway. It’s about the help we give the homeless as we humbly realize that most of us are one paycheck away from building our own shack.
Gratitude is not about giving thanks for what you have, where you work, where you live or even who you are. Thanksgiving is not about you at all.
Thanksgiving is about keeping perspective between recognizing the blessings we’ve received and utilizing our capacity to return those blessings to others.
At the end of the calorie-laden day, perspective will be a constant reminder that we are not alone on this planet. It is the perspective of gratitude that teaches us we’ve all journeyed from the same place and, as Scripture suggests, “to dust we will return.”
That is the perspective from which humility comes, and humility will always be about gratitude.
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Reminder that my family and I will be matching all reader donations to Chispa Project up to $5,000 postmarked between now and Giving Tuesday on December 3. You can donate online at www.chispaproject.org/chaplain or send a check made to “Chispa Project” to 10566 Combie Rd. Suite 6643 Auburn, CA 95602.
This column excerpted from my book “Thriving Beyond Surviving. To order this book or any of my other books, order from my website www.thechaplain.net or send a check for $20 (per book) to the address above.
