Pineridge Blog

Thanksgiving will no doubt be different in 2020, but it is still one of my favorite holidays. For one thing, it is the only holiday that is always on Thursday, which means it is never on Sunday. Christmas brings with it a lot of impossible expectations of getting the right decorations up at the right time and giving the right gifts and creating the right feeling, but Thanksgiving has lower expectations. Maybe in this time of COVID changing our usual plans, and perhaps menus, it is a good year to lower our expectations even further and return to the roots of Thanksgiv-ing, which are simply pausing to give thanks for life and all the graces which sustain us whatever our circumstances.

Sure, it is easy this year on Thanksgiving to focus on what we do not have. “Thanksgiving 2020” may even feel like the punch line to a bad joke. What is there to be thankful for right now? Which means we might have the lowest of low expectations this year. What a great place to begin!

The Psalmist says, “This is the day the Lord has made let us be joyful and give thanks in it.” That’s it really--realizing that this day, this moment, this breath, this life, is created by God who loves us. If you need to reminder to start to give thanks, begin with your next breath. Because if we are breathing as someone said, “There is more right with you than there is wrong with you.”

Anne Lamott writes, “We and life are spectacularly flawed and complex. Often we do not get our way, which I hate, hate, hate. But in my saner moments I remember that if we did, usually we would shortchange ourselves. Sometimes circumstances con-spire to remind us or even let us glimpse how thin the mem-brane is between here and there, between birth and the grave, between the human and the divine. In wonder at the occasional direct experience of this, we say, Thank you.”

Thich Nhat Hanh said, “Life is precious as it is. All the elements for your happiness are already here. There is no need to run, strive, search, or struggle. Just be.” The only thing I would add is, “and give thanks.”