Gratitude with Others

 Have you been grateful With Others?

Day 3 of my Attitude of Gratitude series leading up to Thanksgiving, I want to reflect on those moments when I have been grateful with others. I take this question from Diane Butler Bass, to mean celebrations that included other people in the gratitude.

Growing up, my family would head to Quakertown PA each thanksgiving to gather with my mother’s family. She had 2 brothers and a sister, and they would all gather at the oldest brother’s old country house for a weekend of feasting and family time. It was the one time a year, I would see all my cousins. There would be 12 of us cousins, I was the oldest by just a couple of months, we would get our own table, as many families do and remember I didn’t get to join the adult table until I was in 9th grade.

We pretended we were a poor Kennedy clan. Kelly and Irish after all, it was fun. There were three seminary graduates in the mix, a business man, and entrepreneur and a couple of school teachers among the adults. My other aunt was a secretary for my uncle. The host uncle was a former Pan Am pilot, had his own plane, and would fly us places on Friday just for fun. We buzzed the Statue of Liberty, kind of, once.

When I became a pastor there were Thanksgiving Eve services each year and those were always a chance to be grateful with others. My grandmother on my dad’s side always said we were descendants of William Bradford and the pilgrims. I developed a William Bradford story of Plymouth Plantation sermon in costume for those Wednesday night services. I even had the chance to camp in a trailer on Cape Cod and visit Plymouth a couple of times to help with the character development. I’ve done William Bradford for school thanksgiving events and for Elaine’s apartment complexes on occasions of Thanksgiving feasts for the residents.

Giving thanks with others, reminds us of how important community is. This pandemic has broken those apart, and I look forward to a chance to reconnect with community in those feasts and services in the coming future post pandemic. We truly need each other, and our gifts and experiences involve others, so saying thank you to God for that gift of fellowship is very important.

I’m also very aware how different everyone’s experiences are as well. For some Thanksgiving is a very lonely time, especially if you don’t have that kind of family or they are spread far apart and travel is difficult or impossible. For others in this particular environment we are in now, Thanksgiving may be extremely difficult because we want to avoid the class of ideologies, political persuasions, and comments on the current events. It’s so sad that a time of looking outward toward our Creator, has become such an inward focus for many. WE must find a way to change to focus back to God to enable us to get through some of this acrimony we are experiencing.

So your mission, should you decide to accept it? Is to focus on sharing God’s love with others. Looking for ways to help others experience Thanksgiving to the Creator. Maybe you can give money to an organization feeding others. Perhaps you can go and feed the hungry in community and homeless shelters. Perhaps you can focus on remembering the blessings of community and give thanks for that. You might even want to extend an invitation to your own meal to people who might be alone at this time.

If you are traveling in order to give thanks with others, be careful. Pray for safe journeys and good gatherings. Be patient with fellow travelers, please. These are very hectic times for the travel industry as well as those who want to get someplace special for the Thanksgiving celebration. Say thank you to the ticket agents, the baggage handlers, the travel assistants you may encounter. They are feeling very anxious, considering how many anger and violent issues have surfaced lately. Please be careful out there.

Happy Thanksgiving to one and all. Especially those with others in gratitude.

Pastor Jeff

Tomorrow, gratitude within explored.