~ a story yet to tell…

Give thanks for unknown blessings already on their way. Native American proverb~

When we live in gratitude, every day has space for thanks giving.  Yet do we set that time aside to just sit, to just be?  Do we pray and sing and lift our blessings, our thanks, to a Greater Spirit?

Tomorrow is the day set aside for giving thanks for a full day, all hands on deck, feast for hours big way.  All across the country tonight feasting tables are being cobbled together from card and banquet tables with mismatched chairs from every room in the house.  Part of the table in one room and the caboose of the table in another.  The tables rest quietly, waiting to receive guests gathered at a time when gathering is even harder to do than ever before. Schedules clash.  Distance between.  Traditions ebb and flow.  And at this crossroad of one day, we give thanks.

When my momma was healthy and vibrant, she always helped me set my Thanksgiving banquet table for the next day.  By 10 p.m. on the night before Thanksgiving a peace and calm adorned the table.  This table that has seen my family’s life journey.  China so rarely used was carefully pulled out.  And the silver and crystal. We pulled it all out and set the table just so. I see now that the setting of the table honored the gravity of the day.  The importance of stopping for one day to give thanks.  For being together.  For the gift of returning to the Thanksgiving table again for another year.

For many families, this Thanksgiving Day will be unlike any they’ve known.  The day will be very hard, for some even impossible.  While being together may help to buoy them, their heavy hearts will need time and space to heal and make sense of things. Where there’s been overwhelming loss and deep sadness, let’s lift those with a weary spirit as they begin to heal and take tiny steps forward.  Where there is a feeling of being untethered, let’s hope that for those feeling anxious and defeated and without purpose, that a light will rekindle within them.

Be kind and patient and listen.  Offer a hand or an ear.  Let’s hope that everyone has a place to be.  A meal to share.  A warm room to gather in.   And may there be a moment in your day, perhaps just as the sun takes a bow in the late day sky, for you to close your eyes or drop to your knees, to give thanks for your every blessing and for those unknown already on their way.