Happy Thanksgiving!
Having spent Thanksgiving in a foreign country I have been given some insights on our holidays. The first and most obvious insight is that holidays are purely cultural, and once removed from that native culture, the holiday is lost. Thanksgiving was difficult for me this year simply because the world around me was not celebrating. That is not to say that we did not have a Thanksgiving Day feast, because we had a very large one. Second, I have realized that to me, it isn’t about the holiday. A holiday is just a date that our government, or a group of people have decided to celebrate something. What makes a holiday for me is the time spent with family. So according to this any day may be a holiday, as long as there is a large gathering of family and of course a lot of food.
posted by Sarah C | 12:48 PM
1 Comments:
Man-made holidays are always an interesting study in our human nature. thanksgiving is one of the most intriguing, as we somehow decided to commemorate someone else's moment of giving thanks. It says, yes, on this date in our history, a group of people who came to our land to settle it way back in the 1600's gave thanks. Cool! As if we - living vicariously through our long-dead ancestors - could be even remotely construed as being thankful by eating too much turkey and dressing on the third Thursday in November each year.
It's like when I first came to Seattle and went to work for that software giant in Redmond whose first name starts with "Micro" and last name ends with "soft." I'll not soon forget the day the company-wide email hit my "in box" entitled "MICROSOFT DAY OF CARING." Excuse me?
On this one day a year, Microsoft employees fan out across the Puget Sound to volunteer in an elementary classroom, pick up trash in a public park, cut brush along a public trail... In other words, it was the one day a year that the people could rest assured that the employees and management of Microsoft cared about their community and its people. But what about the other 364 days of the year? One need only be heading east on 520 between the Microsoft Campus and Redmond on any weekday around 5:00 PM to be fully assured that those same lovers of the community on that designated day could care less about anything or anyone that might dare to come between them and their personal sense of driving entitlement. (No angry emails please...I know Microsoft's Day of Caring is important, does great things, etc. Hang with me for the point, here.)
Paul writes that we should rejoice in the Lord always (be thankful always...that "day of caring" 24/7, 365 days a year.)
4Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice! 5Let your gentleness be evident to all. The Lord is near. 6Do not be anxious about anything,
but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. 7And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding,
will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.
Phil 4:4-7
Man what a concept! I wish it were a practical reality in my own life...that I could honestly say that I rejoice in the Lord in all things. It's much easier to commemorate those times in the Bible when others were thankful than to actually be thankful myself. (smile)
My home church pastor used to say we should have an "attitude of gratitude," but I'm afraid that sometimes mine just sux (can I say that in a public blog? Guess I just did.)
May your every day be a "thanksgiving day"...even if you can only find one thing to be thankful for and are the only one celebrating.
Post a Comment
<< Home