Once a year we are extremely thankful.
Once a year we sit around the dining room table and remark on all that we have been given and all that surrounds us. But...there are 364 more days of the year. One day of humility and warm hearts and pie can't hold enough hours in it to begin to pay gratitude to all that we have been given.
In the 1600s Pilgrims left England to find their "New World' where they would find the ideals of freedom and liberty. 102 passengers traveled for two months when finally... "Land!"
After arriving, these people suffered many perils. Half of them died of starvation and illness. But, they carried on with faith and planted seeds with only the prayer that in giving all that they had and humbling themselves they would flourish. Crops grew, and the first iconic feast was given. However, this feast wasn't driven by gluttony or commercialism and I highly doubt they ate until they felt sick. They didn't feast "even though" they lost many members of their clan. The feast was offered to give thanks for two simple things: sustenance and survival.
2013. Here we are, fellow Americans, living in the New World where we have gadgets and gizmos that would pretty much blow the pilgrim's minds. It's hard to remember how astounding these things would be in the 1600s when we've already got our eye on that new Ipad Air that we don't have (Poor us!). So we will eat our bountiful feast quickly so we can fight to the death at Wal-Mart for it. Our day of thanks has even been cut short to a mere "few hours" of Thanks, "thanks" -yes-that-was-a-pun- to Hot Black Friday Deals that actually start on Thankful Thursday.
Our nation is struggling with national debt, but again, that is just another monetary objective thing to worry about. What worries me most is the struggle we are having to find those morals upon which our country was grounded. Thanks to our Founding Father's belief in a "New World" we learned that only by unmaterialistic values of hard work, self-government, courage and unrelenting faith can we find it in our hearts to be truly "Thankful".
We may shout our thanksgiving proclamations around the dining room table, or as our Facebook statuses the month of November, but I want to learn to always be truly grateful. All year round. We have the world. We have freedom and opportunities and the power to choose. While our perfect "New World" America is far from what it was when our Pilgrims first dreamed it, or even what it was a few years ago, without our thankful hearts we will never be truly satisfied in what we have been blessed with and what we still have.
Our generation is known as "The Generation of Entitlement". Awesome. I'd much rather be a Baby Boomer. Baby Boomers learned hard work and value from parents who grew up in the Great Depression, the ultimate trial. Our Generation (Generation Y) grew up with impractical expectations. We think we are more deserving, more special...all that and a bag of chips. We're not. We are not Americans who grew up with much adversity, therefore we know no triumph. The grass is greener on the other side, we don't appreciate the flowers because there aren't any weeds and all that jazz. My generation thinks that by being born, we were given a right of passage to own the greatest cars, buy first homes the size of our Parent's long awaited dream homes, and suffer the greatest injustice when we don't get the latest Apple product on the first day it comes out because, you know, it's our right.
Well guess what. I'm going to stop being comfortable being the typical entitled Generation Y member. I'm going to try to live with the Pilgrim's values, the Baby Boomer's positive attitudes, and a Generation-um-Zero Christ-like heart.
I'd like to sit down to dinner across from the Wampanoag Indians back in the day. They wouldn't eat in a rush. Their dinner would be plain, but plentiful. They would laugh and share stories and I wouldn't even glance at my phone or rush to a sale because, well, they didn't have them back then. But also because how could I tell them of all the things incredible things I have been blessed with at my young age and not even simply sit for an hour of harvest feasting to thank the Lord.
I imagine us going around the table and each of us sharing something we are thankful for; them in their bonnets and me in my skinny jeans. Maybe through watching their simple, humble thanks I'd learn to make mine likewise. After all, this is the feast that would set off thousands of years of thankful traditions, I better do it right.
I would tell my dinner friends about my '96 Toyota Corolla. I wouldn't even tell them of the rust spots all along the hood or the squeal it sometimes makes, because only my generous would be proud to be thankful DESPITE of these things. That's not being thankful. I would explain to these sea travelers how quickly my car gets me to work, to visit family, and to many great adventures all with the turn of a key and the push of a pedal. I wouldn't glory in being thankful even though I don't have the latest most beautiful model. I would tell them I own one of this inventions for myself, not because everyone NEEDS or SHOULD have a car. I own one because I am BLESSED and I am thankful.
As we all celebrate Thanksgiving, not the commercial holiday with the parades and the sales, and the hurry-hurry, and the 5 cheese bacon pecan macaroni, but the Act of Being Thankful, I hope we can reflect the attitudes and simplicity of the first Thanksgiving dinner. As we take time this holiday to look at all of the things we have been bestowed, not because we deserve them, but because we are truly blessed, I hope we can practice to have a true and innate thankfulness for each and every thing we have and continue to receive. I know I am going to try a lot harder. I'd like to fit in at the first Thanksgiving dinner, not be embarrassed.
Maybe today, this ONE day a year, we were extremely thankful...
but 365 days a year we are extremely blessed.
