Thanksgiving 2025

 

Earlier this week in Margaret Wheatley’s book Restoring Sanity, I read:

…this current culture, with people locked down in fear and self-protection, is destroying our relationships, our work, and our future. It is easier to withdraw than to step forward. It is safer to protect oneself than to be visible. … the current culture cannot create the conditions for these behaviours [generosity, creativity, kindness]. Although they are natural to the human spirit, this culture has normalized greed, aggression, and life-destroying behaviours. In this ruthless environment, what’s needed is not individual acts of heroism, but island communities where sanity prevails.  (Pg 15)

 

This morning, I am thankful for this place which for me feels like an island community. A place where I can come and be myself, where I can hear something more wholesome than what I hear in the world, a place where I am encouraged and challenged to be generous, creative, and kind.

 

I spent time this week contemplating what I am most thankful for. I started with harvest and apples, honey and autumn colours. Pumpkin spiced lattes, warm sweaters, crisp air, golden sunshine, the Hunter’s moon; and thanksgiving supper.

More of a Spirit spiced answer led me to be thankful for: this island of sanity, Love and community, faith and friendship, generosity and kindness. And yet, my thankful list seemed pale. I didn’t feel satisfied. Contemplating that for which I am most thankful moved beyond a list and naming exercise. I found that I wasn’t satisfied until I reached the why I am thankful; the why I am generally optimistic, hopeful, and full of gratitude.

 

Before I share the core – the heart- of my gratitude, let me be honest. Wheatley’s quote, naming the ruthless environment in which we live, not shying from stating that this culture has normalized greed, aggression, and life-destroying behaviours deeply bothers me. It bothers me because I hear a truth, a truth that there is always at the ready a power to overshadow and extinguish belief in all that is good, and kind, and beautiful.

 

This was on my mind as I read the Thanksgiving scripture from Deuteronomy. It is a beautiful text of God’s abundance and the human response of giving thanks by offering the first fruits of harvest. The ritual includes a recitation of remembering identity forming moments: once being displaced; once being slaves; once being refugees; and then as a people finding home, freedom, and abundance.

 

But the reading is not so simple. It is about a people giving thanks. It is about a covenant people returning the first of their harvest to the Temple, with prayer, and recognition that Creator has provided. The first fruits, according to the covenant, are brought together and there is community feasting and celebration. Included in the covenant is a redistribution of the harvest with those in society who are hungry and in need. The covenant was to practice life-giving behaviours, behaviours that at the core were relational, loving God, loving neighbour, loving creation.

What is not so simple is that this thanksgiving came at a cost. The Hebrews, fleeing slavery, exiting Egypt, moved across the dessert, and upon entering the promised land, possessed the land. The land was not empty. There where an array of peoples, who were settled in the land, with families and farms and cities. To make ‘the promised land’ the people already on the land were pushed off the land, or killed, some remained to assimilate, some were used as cheap labour. There was continued tension and war, read the books of Kings and Chronicles for some of that history. There is thanksgiving for some and suffering for others.

Present day Israel and Palestinian Territories -peoples- some who have lived on the land for centuries, refugees resettled, land given and taken after the Holocaust, armed boundaries, the illegal acquisition of land – all in a land where three faiths have communities and sacred places. Faiths whose people are called to life-giving behaviours. Called to thanksgiving and the giving of first fruits, they live in a reality ready to overshadow and extinguish belief in all that is good, and kind, and beautiful.

 

Thanksgiving --  in a world that feeds on greed, aggression, and life-destroying behaviours.

 

I am thankful for my health, would I be thankful in sickness? Thankful for freedom, could I be thankful in bondage? I am thankful for peace, would I be thankful in war? I am thankful for home, would I remain thankful without? Would gratitude remain in times of intense suffering? Would prayers of thanks be given, hope be persistent, and optimism remain, if everything were to fall apart?

 

My contemplation of that which I am most thankful for, came to a turning point when I realized that thanks, hope, and optimism would not remain, if I only had a list – no matter how full of gratitude I am – My whole list was really superficial thanksgiving. Important for sure! and helpful in fueling life-giving behaviours, but as items named could be taken away, lost, or broken, so to thanksgiving could drift away.

If I am honest with you, there is fear – it niggles back here somewhere touch back of head and sometimes here touch heart that I my thanksgiving and hope will succumb to the shadow of life-destroying behaviours.

Alone this is a strong possibility.

Together as an Island of Sanity that possibility fades.

And this is where my contemplation of that for which I am most thankful rested – the heart of my gratitude, the heart of my being – the WHY I am thankful and hopeful and optimistic.

I am thankful for Mystery (with a capital M) and Word (with a capital W). I rest in both. I grow in both. I live in both. We live and move and have our being in both.

 

Some might say we are deceiving ourselves or are living in a fairy tale. I don’t believe this. Among the stories passed from generation to generation of those who embraced Mystery and the Word, they lived life-giving behaviours under the power of catastrophic circumstances. The letter to the Philippians is an example. In this Western-most-front of the Pauline community, opposed and threatened by the Roman Empire, Paul in prison and facing possible death, the community is fracturing as strong individuals who disagree are exhibiting life-destroying behaviours. Paul reminds the community who they are and why they are who they are with a hymn in chapter 2, recalling Jesus -the Word- and God, the Mystery- and how taking human form humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Paul pleads with individuals not of the same mind to be of the same mind in the Lord. They share the same love, return to the heart of the matter, the core of the community’s thanksgiving, hope, and life together. As an Island in a world of greed, aggression, and life-destroying behaviours, Paul centres and encourages the community of Philippi to be that Island of Sanity.

Paul writes:

Rejoice in the Lord always, and again I will say, Rejoice.

Let your gentleness be known to everyone. The Lord is near.

Do not worry about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God.

And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

The word of the Lord.

 

Paul is not finished. With more enthusiasm, with more Spirit-spice Paul adds:

Finally, beloved, whatever is true, whatever is honourable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is   pleasing, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence and if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things.

Keep on doing the things that you have learned and received and heard and seen in me, and the God of peace with be with you.

Word of God, word of life.