The American Thanksgiving conjures up images of abundance, a shared meal celebrating gifts of family, food, and friends.  I think it interesting that in America Thanksgiving is a day, written into statute, where we are “assigned” gratitude by our legislators - a national holiday set aside primarily to give thanks.  I reflect on holidays past, Martha Stewart turkeys and Julia Child pumpkin pies, some holidays stressful, some wonderful.  In my family of origin, Thanksgiving took more than six hours to prepare, but was eaten in twelve minutes, precisely the same twelve minutes as the Thanksgiving football game half-time.  That is what happens in a house full of brothers.  After I married, our family tradition was to forgo football entirely, say Grace, then hold hands and go one-by-one around the table saying one thing for which we were thankful.  Later, when the kids were teens and thought this tradition over-bearing, we added an out for them; they could say one thing they were thankful for, or tell about one experience they had in the last year we didn’t know.  That latter option, when selected, became a starting point for animated family conversation!

     Something in me resonates with those early Pilgrims and Native Americans who held the first feast after tremendous loss of life, crops, and dreams.  These good people gave thanks for coming through hard times, sharing in the relative abundance of their first good harvest.  That first feast was ever more celebratory because it was not easily achieved, and represented not only the fruitfulness of a year’s hard work, but the pain and suffering of so many during the same period of time.  To be truly grateful, it seems to me, one must give thanks for all that Life brings.

     Looking at Gratitude in this way, all Life is a gift.  Being grateful means being thankful for everything one experiences, whether we like all those experiences or not.  For me, Gratitude has become a kind of personal discipline.  To be truly grateful for my life, I have to honor and reclaim every moment of it. I can’t be selectively grateful. Each moment has led me to the next, and to the life I have now.  Each moment is special - even the hard ones.

     The call to be grateful is a call to trust that each life experience we are given is food for the soul and an opportunity to claim a more deeply spiritual life.  As Henri Nouwen, an internationally renowned priest and author writes, “Gladness and sadness are never separate, joy and sorrow really belong together, mourning and dancing are part of the same movement.”  To be truly alive, we have to - we must - live it all.

     This Thanksgiving, I encourage you to hold hands around the table and give thanks, not just for the things that you know that are good in your life, but also for life’s challenges.  Give thanks for it all - for all is Grace.