We have spent the last many Thanksgivings in the presence of some of our closest friends. Friends who have become family. Friends who have shared the best and the worst days of our lives. This assortment of friend-family has over the years, I suppose, taken on the nature of any family with all its eccentricities and celebrations. Mostly we can laugh about it which isn’t so easy sometimes with blood relatives. Every now and then one of them will bring a new person along which changes the shape and energy around the table. Sometimes these people return and get folded into this created family system. Other times they move on and they become simply a memory that visited us.
This year we have traveled to be with our Seattle Son for this holiday that carries so many ‘must haves.’ This year our traditions will be altered. No friend-family around. No extended biological family to be seen. We are nestled in a sweet little cottage on Whidbey Island. Outside our window I can see both the majesty of the Olympic Mountains and the icy waters of Puget Sound. There will be no welcoming at the door of those carrying dishes to be warmed up in our oven once the turkey has been cooked. There is only one pie not the array of desserts that is our norm. No dressing. None of us like it. The meal and the gathering will be simpler. Frankly, it is difficult to know how to feel about this. The messier, wilder, more voluminous is what I know.
But as I have imagined, and now am living, this Thanksgiving of a different sort, what remains is the gratitude. There always comes a time at our feast, around a large table I had lobbied for for some time, when I look around and recognize the privilege with which I live every day. I see the beauty shining forth from faces I love and know love me back even when I don’t deserve it. Making an arc with my eyes around the table I see children grown into amazing young adults at the cusp of their unfolding lives. I see wrinkles and graying hair, faces that have taken on the character of their glowing spirits. For me it is always a glimpse of the kin-dom of God.
Today I will not see those faces but I will be present to the three others for whom my heart swells with love. I will look out at the mountains that shine forth their steadfastness and the water that reminds me of the Holy One’s gifts of earth and stone and sea. Once again I will wish to be a psalmist declaring ‘how lovely are your dwelling places’. The act of giving thanks does not depend on where you are or even with whom you are blessed to sit at table. The act of giving thanks is the privilege of knowing the movement of goodness and kindness and abundance in the every day living of our lives.
For this place, for these people, for this living, I offer my deep, deep heart-thanks. This is a day for thanks giving.
