Samhain Thanksgiving Moon
In long ago still Christian days I sought advice from a spiritual director, a Jesuit nun whose name I have forgotten. I have not forgotten her advice, however. “Keep a gratitude journal. All spirituality begins in gratitude.”
Thanksgiving has become a primary, if the not the primary, American holiday. As such, it is one of the highlights of holiseason, a family focused festival celebrated across religious, class and ethnic lines. Its emphasis on gratitude, now long unmoored from its ironic relationship to the natives of the East Coast,who reportedly provided the food for the “first Thanksgiving,” enhances it.
It is a holiday with a focus on thankfulness, not getfulness, and as such, might be the most unusual holiday of them all. We come together with a desire to eat together, of course. Festive banqueting is an ancient way of honoring a god, a king or a queen, a birthday, a national or religious observance, but here that banquet instead honors the land, its fruits, and the relationships which matter to us. It may be the central American holiday, one more evocative of an American civil spirituality than the guns and bluster 4th of July or even the more narrow celebrations of Labor Day and Memorial Day. There will be no time in our common life when stopping for a day of thanks will be inappropriate.
This entry brings to mind the quotation from Meister Eckhart.
“If the only prayer you say in your life is “thank you,” that would suffice.”
I like your entry.
Another thought from a minister I know: Perhaps the abundance we celebrate at Christmas is a result of the spirit of thanks that we celebrate at Thanksgiving.