A Prayer of Thanksgiving

As we find ourselves in this time of Thanksgiving, our hearts and minds (and TVs, radios, and billboards) have been filled for weeks with visions of feasts, gathered friends and family, and the idea of thankfulness.  

But, now that we are actually here, ready to celebrate the day of Thanksgiving, I can feel my body hesitate.  I can feel my heels digging in and the little voice screaming out in the back of my mind, "But, wait!"  Wait!  What about the children who will go hungry this week, here in the United States, as they are surrounded by visions of feasts?  Wait!  What about the people of St. Louis and Ferguson who continue to rage and wail and fight for justice that will not come?  Wait! What about the thousands of immigrants who wonder what this executive order from President Obama might mean for them, if it's really safe to come out of the shadows?  And (because I, like many, am stuck in my own head and self and worldview), wait! What about how I wanted things to be this November?  What about the job I wanted?  The home I wanted?  The dreams I have that haven't yet come true?  

How can we give thanks when all these things are going on?  What does giving thanks mean in a broken world?

The Bible certainly holds many passages about giving thanks: from the laws about ways to give thanks to God, to Jesus breaking bread and giving thanks as he shares food with his disciples and the crowds, to the apostles reenacting Jesus' last supper.  As I looked through the many biblical references to "thanksgiving," my mind kept returning to this e.e. cummings poem: 

i thank You God for most this amazing
day: for the leaping greenly spirits of trees
and a blue true dream of sky; and for everything
which is natural which is infinite which is yes

(i who have died am alive again today,
and this is the sun’s birthday; this is the birth
day of life and of love and wings: and of the gay
great happening illimitably earth)

how should tasting touching hearing seeing
breathing any–lifted from the no
of all nothing–human merely being
doubt unimaginable You?

(now the ears of my ears awake and
now the eyes of my eyes are opened)

--e.e. cummings

This poem never stops bringing tears into my eyes.  And, for me this thanksgiving, it reminds me what it means to give thanks.  Because it doesn't ignore what is going on around us and in us- it names it as the "no" of the world- the "no of nothing at all" from which we all need to be lifted.  And it reminds us that in this hubbub of a broken world full of unachieved dreams, we are also citizens of the God-made world which is "everything which is natural which is infinite which is yes."

This reminds me that giving thanks isn't ignoring the disappointments or the hurts around me, but being able to see, amongst the brokenness, the joy in the now.  And not just to see it, but to taste it, touch it, hear it, see it, imagine it.  As some of you pointed out after my last post, yes, God is in this moment waiting for us, as God is in every moment and everything, trying to pull us out of this world's "NO!" into God's every moment "YES!"

This poem urges us to take a deep breath, close our eyes and open them again, and notice.  Notice the soft grasp of that child's hand around yours.  Notice the yellow-blue-pink-all faceted gleam of sunshine on cold snow.  Notice the pulse of the neighbor's music urging your hips to move.  Notice the laughter bubbling up from the crowded room, the warmth that rises up from the conversation.  

This is God, pulsing through every moment and hour.  Reminding us when our hearts are heavy, that we are a people of YES.  

May we live this YES for ourselves and attempt to create a world where God's YES is a YES for everyone. 

May the ears of my ears awaken and the eyes of my eyes be opened.

Blessings on your Thanksgiving, G