a different kind of Thanksgiving

I love this time of year. There is so much to look forward to, so much to be grateful for. The hard Texas heat turns to crisp, cool mornings. The bright green turns (if only slightly here) different shades of reds and yellows. Blankets, hoodies, coffee and comfy clothes rapidly become a fixture of daily life. And the Holidays and an air of excitement begins to build. Some people like the spring and I myself do enjoy it, but there is something about Fall, about this time of year that makes me feel hopeful. And though this Thanksgiving was of a different kind, if I were to be honest Thanksgiving for my family has looked very different the last 3 years. When family rapidly changes, so does the look of the Holiday season. So, this year I redefined family. Family doesn't have to be blood because for the Christian family is a much greater and deeper reality than DNA. In this place in my life my roommate has become family to me and her family, in many ways, has become my family away from home. This year I went to Houston to celebrate with them. It is wonderful to spend the holidays with people that are of blood kinship, but there is something deep and spiritual about being welcomed into a home and sharing a meal of thanksgiving with people who are in no way obligated to do so. Being a part of their experience, their traditions, their funny stories, their fellowship was amazing. There were of course, moments of adjustment for me realizing the differences between the family I grew up in and the "family" I spent Thanksgiving with. Neither are perfect and neither would claim to be. We can spend a lot of time complaining about our families, or situations, individual members that cause problems or disrupt the peace, I have certainly done my fair share of this type of complaining, both outwardly and inwardly. I was thankful this year, but I did not really give much heartfelt time to contemplating gratefulness until I was challenged through a sermon I heard 3 days after Thanksgiving.

We went to Second Baptist in Houston and Ben Young preached (he said with no connection to Thanksgiving Day) about gratefulness. He used the story in Luke where Jesus heals 10 lepers, but only 1 comes back to thank him for what he did. He explained that ungratefulness can act like a small cell of leprosy and even a small amount can lead to bitterness, greed, a sense of entitlement, selfishness and I would argue much the bulk of American sin. I would also argue that ungratefulness IS the root of all these evils and that if a person operates in a state of gratefulness it is impossible to live in these evils. This lack of gratefulness and thanksgiving to God is much of what is wrong with humanity. It prevents us from loving God and it certainly makes it impossible to love our neighbor. It allows a pack of humans to act like animals and TRAMPLE another to death in order to provide their little Johnny or Suzie with this years latest electronics and toys (which will clutter the closets and probably the landfill by next Thanksgiving season). Its why a woman can elbow another in the face to get a tv that is marked down by $200.00 and instead of apologize scream, "Thats right! This is MY TV."

How powerful gratitude is in everything. Walking in a spirit of gratitude kills our wrong founded sense of entitlement, it makes circumstances obselete, and consumerism absurd. It redefines wealth and it refocuses our lenses on what really matters. I do not currently live my life in a spirit of gratitude, but I want to. I am frightened when I read stories like the ones from Black Friday because I have seen those attitudes in my own heart, it is simply a fleshing out of all that ungratefulness is. It is ungratefulness at its worst.