Thanksgiving Bookends

I posted these on the Camino of Healing page or on my personal Facebook page. I'm consolidating them on this post as a duet of reflections for Thanksgiving and gratitude. Though the posts were only 3 days apart, they seem to go together like bookends. The first was posted the morning after I attended a church gathering at a friend's home. The second was posted as I was on my way to setup the Thanksgiving dinner in the park for our community in need. I share them with you here in case you missed them or are not on Facebook.

(1) Monday morning - November 19

I was at a dinner gathering this weekend and I sat at a table where a family fed their two sons. They put the hot dogs and mac-n-cheese and kale on their plates. The veggies surprised me because I didn't like them for dinner as a child and these two youngsters wanted them.

Then the parents did their nightly dinner practice, asking the boys to share their gratitudes. The boys shared things like mac-n-cheese, baseball, bread, and a game they made up.

It was all so innocent. Simple really. Expressing gratitude as we broke bread.

And I wished, how I wished, we all could remember to say thanks for all these little things. For the bread in our lives, for the mac-n-cheese, for the games.

We don't have to be grateful for big things only. We can be grateful for the small things. On my Facebook page, I've been posting every day some gratitude that I have. And they're the photo opps of thanksgivings: family, love, jobs, sunsets, etc. But let's not forget the little joys, the games and jokes that put smiles on our faces every day. Let's be grateful for the tears as well as the giggles, the range and rainbow of human emotions, with people we know and love, with people we're getting to know, with people we've never even met. Because all these things remind us that we are alive, and that's the biggest gift of all.


(2) Thanksgiving 6:30am - November 22

I shivered as the cold leaves slipped silently under my feet, threatening ever so slyly to trip me to the ground. I smelled the damp cedars and memories began to fill me.

There was the woman without a home who apparently walked 3 miles from All Saints to the coffee shop I frequent. She had gotten a gift card from our church to help her out, began walking to the store, and became lost. The coffee shop owner told me earlier this week about how she took this woman to the store to help her and then took her back down to the church. The owner didn’t try to take the woman to her nearby church, but back to All Saints, because that’s where she wanted to go. I pondered what it felt like to have to walk everywhere and to get lost.

When I walk, it’s a privilege. I get to walk. And someday my body or my circumstances might not allow that luxury. Or, Someday I might be forced to walk.

I shivered this chilly morning as I smelled the rain-filled air and prepared to head down to the park. We have to set up the tables and chairs, for the diners and for the volunteers, giving a Thanksgiving dinner to those who might not be able to do something special for themselves or their families.

I shivered when I thought of all the drenched people who might have to walk to the park for this meal. Who had to sleep in the rain. We woke up when the rain started, hearing it tap against the windows, then pulled our comforter over us and drifted back to sleep. I didn’t think about those sleeping on the streets at that moment. But I did once I went outside.

I shivered as I remembered walking in the rain on Camino. I wondered where to find safety. Where to dry my clothes. Where to wash the mud off my face, shoes, trousers. Where the next village was. Where to find a bathroom. I wondered where the path before me was leading me.

I shivered. And I parked. Got out of my car. I put on my backpack of supplies I needed for today. I grabbed a bottle of water.

And I am walking the two hours from Altadena down to the park. Right now, I’m nursing a cup of coffee at a different coffee shop, warming my hands. I’m back on my camino, meeting people in the shadows, smiling, shivering together, wishing each other good mornings and happy thanksgivings.

Soon I’ll be at the park, and Stephen will join me and we will set the table for a great thanksgiving. I won’t be cold once we start hauling the many hundreds of tables and chairs around.

The food will come out. People will break bread together. We will give thanks.

And I might just shiver one more time.

—

May your Thanksgiving be filled with grace, fellowship, family, and love and may our tables be set for the whole human family.

As Thanksgiving yields to Advent

The last wedding we attended was our own, six months ago. On the Saturday before Thanksgiving, we attended the holy matrimony of a dear couple, Jeff and Chris. .Weddings are an outward sign of love, community, charity, and self-assurance. Stephen and I hoped ours felt that way as much to our guests as to ourselves. We certainly saw that in Jeff and Chris's union. In offering and sharing a sign of love, weddings are the visible rainbow promised to us and where we, if we desire, can find a pot of grace granted.

As the old hymn goes, "Ubi caritas et amor deus ibi est". We used that hymn as did Jeff and Chris. It means more or less "Where charity and love exist, God is there." People can be in love and keep it to themselves. I'm sure politically, many would prefer this. But loving just yourselves is basically self-focused, with no outward benefit or creation. By sharing the love with others in the most charitable way, one creates. Creation can be in offering life, in supporting life, or in sustaining life. Some have children. I myself prefer feeding children and working towards their safety. Charity and love combined show us the face of God.

Thanksgiving itself was a marvelous affair for us this year. It started on Thursday with a morning of work at Union Station Homeless Services's Dinner in the Park. We love the set up tasks. Many prefer actually dishing up the food, but we prefer to work with the team that hauls out the tables, sets up the temporary structures, and decorates. It's very behind-the-scenes, but for us it's not important for the one hand to know what the other is doing. It's about sharing hospitality, abundance, and grace with those who are in need.

We then had a quiet and intimate dinner at my sister's apartment. It felt warm and joyful. The next day, we had a much larger, combined dinner with both sides of our family together at our place. Noise and food were plentiful as we shared stories and laughs late into the night.

And then I took off to Cancun, Mexico.

At the top of Coba pyramid in the Yucatan jungle.

Stephen had to be at school so he stayed home. I traveled and did some work from afar. I met up with a Camino peregrino - 19yo Jakob from Austria - who I befriended on my pilgrimage. He was one of the two cousins who walked not 800 km, but 3000 km as he started from his front door in Austria. Together, we celebrated, learned, shared dreams, and immersed ourselves in culture, history, peoples. Jakob is starting a 9 month journey that will take him from Mexico down all the way to Chile in South America. In that time, he'll work organic farms, find odd jobs, camp, swim, hitchhike, learn about the cultures, and improve his 5th language Spanish.

And that's what led me into thinking about Advent. Advent is about preparation and waiting. I found myself turning on a dime from a season of thanks by spending time with someone preparing for what is to come. His dreams and aspirations are so similar to what I carried with me at his age. I share with all who listen that I view my young Austrian friends from the Camino de Santiago as almost my nephews. I hope that I can share my stories with them, offer ideas not based on judgment, and encourage them. Jakob has so much going for him and his heart is as expansive as his mind.

Spending a week with Jakob allowed me to feel hopeful and alive. It was a move from the past -- where your mind must be in order to give thanks -- towards the future where your mind must be in order to have hope. Jakob takes the needed risks on this journey so that he can be ready for what is to come. He's willing to walk away from worldly conveniences and stable relationships in order to ensure that he's prepared.  I feel blessed that he helped make my Advent more meaningful and personal.

Y con eso, para mí, mi Advent ha comenzado (and with that, my Advent has begun)