Thanksgiving Day

 

What am I thankful for?

The question bounces through my mind and I immediately begin to think about my prayers.  I often mention to God things that I appreciate about my life.  The weather seems to factor prominently.  Apparently, I am extremely blessed by sunny days with pleasant temperatures – this, even though I don’t often think over much about them until it comes time to pray.

I am also thankful for the family that God has given me.  Once again, this is despite the fact that I often feel frustrated with my children’s behavior and wish they would just “grow up already.” 

I am thankful for “traveling mercies” and the ways in which I am divinely protected as I drive on the busy thoroughfares of this mighty nation in which I live.  Once again, I may mention this in prayer, but when I am driving, I’m seldom feeling thankful, just pressed for time and perhaps anxious about all of the crazy people guiding vehicles (poorly) around me.

(May God's kingdom usher in the time of self-driving vehicles.  Amen.)

The Apostle Paul told the Thessalonian Christians, “In everything give thanks.”  This seems like good advice, and I think most Christians somehow think this means that we are to have at least two or three items per prayer for which we thank God.  The easiest way to do this is to carry a little bag of things that we are always thankful for and open that at the beginning of our prayers and trot those out so that God feels better about Himself and doesn’t think we are just after getting our petitions answered.

It seems likely that we are called, not to say thank you (although certainly we should be willing to do that too), but to live thankful lives.  People who are living lives of gratitude do more than periodically list things they appreciate about their lives.  Lists are good, but it seems to me that they fall short of the Biblical imperative of joy.

Joy is one of the hardest fruits of the spirit to bear.  Joyful people feel the love that is behind the gift – even when gift falls short in some way.  Behind the “frowning providence,” they see God’s smiling face and realize that there is blessing to be found, even on a journey through suffering.

I wish I could say that I have mastered this, that unlike all of those frowning Christians around me, I am truly living a life of thanksgiving, but I struggle as well as anyone with seeing the clouds and missing the silver linings.  I find myself counting worries and not blessings and even my gratitude lists ring hollow with things I know I "should" be thankful for, but that I seldom think about these things until I break them out for Thanksgiving.

Maybe this is a time of year to commit again to living a joy filled life and to realize the amazing blessings each one

of us has been granted.  For grace comes pouring down from above to let us know our Heavenly Father’s love – even in the chaos of a department store the morning after Thanksgiving.

Cosmo and Reading

 

 

“You know what Cosmo was doing this morning?”  I looked around the dinner table to see if any of my family knew the answer to my question.

“Probably nothing,” Elliot guessed.  “He just lies around and sighs every so often.”

“Wrong,” I said.  It is true that Cosmo sighs a lot.  I’ve never figured it out why.  Dogs have the nicest lives and yet, they do sigh as though they are longing for Dog-topia.

“He probably had the zoomies and was tearing around the downstairs,” Victoria guessed.

“No, not that either,” I said.

“I give up,” said Vincent.

“He was studying Elise’s first grade, “Learning to Read” book,” I said.  “He really seemed like he was making good progress on it.”

“Cosmo’s a smart dog,” Victoria said contentedly.

“He’s smarter than Elise,” Elliot said.  “But that’s not saying much.”

“I think he’s trying to fit in,” I said.  “He knows the rest of his family reads and so he wants to be able to do so as well.  I’m going to get him his own special copy of ‘Go, Dog, Go!’ and maybe some of the Clifford books too.  I’m sure he’ll enjoy them.”

“Maybe if you get him ‘Call of the Wild,’ he’ll run away and join a wolf pack,” Elliot said.  That, I must confess, seems unlikely.  The chance of a wolf pack letting in a Golden Doodle, much less letting him lead the pack seems slim to none.

Reading is an amazing thing.  You can do it for the enjoyment factor and you can do to learn things and often for both of those things.  It saddens me to realize that about fifty percent of Americans hadn’t read a single book over the last year.

I suppose I fall in the minority, because I read 114 books last year and 82 books so far this year. 

Of course, in another era, the majority of people in society couldn’t read.  It is estimated that probably around 5 percent of the citizens in ancient Israel could read.  Quite simply, when you are expending all of your energy simply to scratch a living out of the desert soil, sitting down with a mystery novel or a biography was furthest from any of their minds.  Beyond which, there weren’t scrolls to be found most places other than the temple.  Copies had to be made by hand and were very few and very expensive.

Even in that time, they understood the importance of internalizing the Torah.  Moses told the people, “And thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children, and shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, and when thou liest down, and when thou risest up.  And thou shalt bind them for a sign upon thine hand, and they shall be as frontlets between thine eyes.  And thou shalt write them upon the posts of thy house, and on thy gates.” (Deuteronomy 6:7-9)

The pages of the Bible are full of wisdom.  There are stories there for learning and most of all to know and understand how we can approach God.

It is said that Martin Luther had one of the greatest impacts on the worldwide education level.  It wasn’t because of his break with the Catholic church, but because he translated the Bible into German and desired that those who spoke the German language would be able to pick it up and read it for themselves.

Perhaps it is dangerous to think of people reading the Bible for themselves.  Maybe they will twist its meaning and come up with ideas that aren’t orthodox.  Then again, maybe they will read and understand a little better who they are and who God is.

If my dog can learn to read and better himself, then so can you!