November 19, 2006

A Harvest of Joy

by Julianne Stokstad

Thanksgiving is one of my very favorite holidays. It is one all of us can share, no matter our background or beliefs. We all have something to be thankful for. It is a time of big gatherings of family and friends, a time of traditions and of remembrance. It calls forth the smell of turkey roasting, the bustle of activity in the kitchen, and games in the family room. This is a time for us to remember those in our community who might be alone and include them.

Abraham Lincoln in the middle of the Civil War in 1863, made Thanksgiving an official holiday. He hoped giving thanks to God for our blessings "with one heart and one voice by the whole American people" might bring healing to our warring and broken people. Healing through giving God thanks and praise is a long-standing good idea. It is a universal human need to express gratitude. Going back to roots of human history, all cultures and peoples and religions have celebrations of gratitude, incorporated in worship or often as harvest festivals.

These days it can be a struggle to remember the meaning of our holidays because of the excessive commercialization around them. Thanksgiving gets off pretty easy because it is so close to biggest shopping season of the year, Christmas. We suffer from obscene consumption of more than just food, of fuel, of material goods, that goes beyond what is good for our Earth, and us and so we probably need to fast more than to feast. My own Thanksgiving this year is going to be very simple.

Our scripture reminds us to give our thanks to God, our God here among us nurturing the Earth and all creatures on it. It is the part of Jesus' Sermon of the Mount that deals with letting go of fear and anxiety. Jesus is not telling his listeners to be irresponsible and carefree, letting others do all the work. Instead he is telling us to pay careful attention to the priorities we set in our lives. He says don't worry about the small stuff. Keep a larger perspective. If we look around in the natural world, we will see God is here caring for the needs of the birds and the plants. If we spend all our energy taking care of our basic needs for food and shelter, then we often forget how to live with thankfulness to God and seeking God's presence. The big question is can we trust God is aware of our needs and will also care for us? If we trust God, then Jesus tells us to strive first for the Kingdom of God, loving God and our neighbor as ourselves.

The traditional story of the first Thanksgiving is a beautiful example of this, at least the way it was taught when I was in school. The Pilgrims came over on the Mayflower and suffered greatly their first winter. Through the help and kindness of the Indians, especially Squanto , they survived and celebrated their first harvest with a great feast shared with the Indians. That's why we have turkey, pumpkin pie and cranberries at our Thankgiving dinner.

I've done some research on story, inspired by the band of Native American Peace Pilgrims who spent the night at our church in October. It turns out that the Victorians invented the story of the first Thanksgiving story. Although is a myth there is some truth in it.

Historically recorded events are: November 11, 1620, the Mayflower anchored in Provincetown Harbor. In December of that year, the colonists chose a site abandoned by the local Wampanoag Indians who had mostly died from European diseases caught several years earlier from explorers. They called it Plimoth. In March 1621 Squanto, who must have been the only Indian in North America who spoke English came and arranged a peace treaty between the Colonists and the Indians. Probably when they made this treaty, food was shared. Squanto did probably teach them about the local foods and how to grow beans and maize. But it is unlikely they were ever great friends or trusted each other very much. Written history tells of a terrible drought in 1623, which nearly destroyed the Pilgrims crops. When the drought broke in July, on that rainy day, it is written the Pilgrims had a long long church service of Thanksgiving but there was no feasting and there were no Indians present.

From the perspective of the Wampanoag Indians, there is not much to be thankful for. Their population in that area was defeated either by disease or battle. Today the town of Plymouth Rock has a Thanksgiving ceremony each year in remembrance of the first Thanksgiving. There are still a few Wampanoag people living in Massachusetts and 36 years ago at the 350th anniversary of the Pilgrim's arrival, one of them was asked to speak. Here is part of what was said: "Today is a time of celebrating for you---a time of looking back to the first days of white people in America. But it is not a time of celebrating for me. It is with a heavy heart I look back upon what happened to my People. When the Pilgrims arrived, we, the Wampanoags, welcomed them with open arms, little knowing that it was the beginning of the end.......Let us always remember, the Indian is and was just as human as the white people."

Where did the Pilgrims go wrong? The Bible tells us that God is always on the side of the underdog, the oppressed. Were they afraid of the Indians and not willing to share? Did they see the Indians as less than human or did they see themselves as the underdog, the chosen ones by God. This story, of course, is not unique or is it simple. It is sadly the story of much of human history. It is the story of the Jews as they moved into the Promised Land without understanding that the Canaanites who lived there first were also humans. It is the story of the Sunni and the Shiites in Iraq. It is the story of the Sudanese and the people from Darfur. It is the story of human failure to love our neighbor as ourselves. How can we get beyond this curse of devastation and war humans have imposed on each other for so long? Perhaps this is a question we can take to heart this Thanksgiving and reflect on our neighbors right here in our lives. Those who came before us lived in a different time with a different consciousness. Let us hope that we can act with more integrity to help heal all warring and hurting people and the hurting earth.

We tend to take much of what we have for granted. I see a tremendous sense of entitlement in our country, encouraged even by our highest leaders. We also can take on an attitude of self-righteousness, thinking we ourselves have earned everything we have. Both of these attitudes are blocks to our gratitude. They block understanding that the important things--come from the earth, from each other and when all is said and done, from God. In other words, they are gifts.

Gratitude is really a choice. It doesn't depend on circumstance or genetics. It is within our power to make a choice to make life better for ourselves and other people. We can be grateful even when we have some doubts about our faith. It is a choice.

How do we foster gratitude? One way is to keep a daily gratitude journal and beyond writing down what we are grateful for. To go the next step, we can write down the ways we notice how other people support us. We truly stand in a web of connectedness, to other people.

Meister Eckhart wrote something to the effect, if the only prayer you ever say in your life is thank you, that is enough. It is through our recognition of the great grace of gifts from God that gratitude flows. May you remember this Thanksgiving to look for Joy in this day--in the faces of children and old people, in the abundance of the table, in the peace of the day, in the beauty of the autumn garden. God's great abundance is all around us, if we can be see it. And if we recognize it, how can we be anything but grateful. As we are grateful, let us always keep in mind that our neighbors are all the people on earth and as long as any of our neighbors are suffering, there is work for us to do. As the psalmist wrote: "May those who sow in tears, reap with shouts of joy. Those who go out weeping, bearing the seed for sowing, shall come home with shouts of joy, carrying their sheaves." May Thanksgiving bring a harvest of joy for all peoples. Amen