Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving

By LEON YOUNGBLOOD

Things have changed so much in such a short time.  That’s why I’m running this column from 2017 to see if I’m still thankful:

BRIAR CIRCLE

“There are such things as ‘thankless’ Thanksgivings,” my friend the Reverend-Brother-Doctor John observed.  John wasn’t telling me anything I did not already know.  He stumbled onto the subject after I innocently inquired about his church’s holiday plans.

He continued, “Some people are woefully bereft of an ‘attitude of gratitude.’  You can beat ‘em with a stick, and they still just refuse to be thankful about anything.  You know people like that, don’t you.”  

I nodded.  John said, “Some people just rub it into the sufferers, too, and aggravate it.  We visited our niece’s family, yesterday.  My grandnephew, fours years old, was howling and crying his eyes out.  I asked him what was wrong, and he said, ‘Sister says I can’t have any holidays ‘cause I don’t go to school!  I don’t have nothin’ to be holidayed from!  She says I can’t be thankful!’

“Well, now, his sister can be as mean as a snake, you know.  I told the boy, Sister was wrong.  If you did not go to school or to work, every day is a holiday.  He grabbed hold of that idea immediately.  He bragged about it to big sister until she started crying.”

Pastor John paused.  With as much enthusiasm as my interest in the family anecdote permitted, I asked, “Did they get it resolved?”

“Sort of.   The grandparents are going to be there for Thanksgiving.  The niece and her husband thought they’d let them babysit while they sneaked away to Iraq, or North Korea, or someplace similar for a little rest.  She was joking, I’m sure.  Eventually, the children called a truce.  They’re only a couple of years apart, but they discovered sibling rivalry early.”

John paused again, an irritating habit of his.  Then he said, “They’re a circus, sometimes, but they really are a happy family.  And they are thankful.  Baby number three is on the way—due along about Easter.”

I did not want an overdose of Brother John’s family anecdotes any more than he would have wanted of mine.  I asked for other examples of “Thankless Thanksgivings.”  I wanted a few samplings, but he gave me a banquet. 

John told me about his first visit to a “Rescue Mission” in Mobile, Alabama, 1974, to preach while staring into the grim faces of two-dozen or so male derelicts and one female derelict.  It was the Thanksgiving holiday, but they were not particularly thankful.  They came only for a meal.  “That,” John said, “was a hard audience.  But a few came up afterwards to thank me, and asked me to pray for them.”

Then, he spoke the next day at a holiday dinner at a charity event with people of the “Blessed because we’re rich” variety of religious thankfulness.  “That was a harder audience,” John said.  “They thanked me, but nobody asked me to pray for them.  They gave me a $50 honorarium. I sent it to the mission.”

Then he told me of patients in nursing homes, and of some homebound with terminal illnesses, “Fading away gradually, painfully, until they die.  Well—what do you say to them?  Some of these also are not particularly thankful.  And I’ll be honest with you: it’s a little hard for me to blame them.”

Disillusionment doesn’t necessarily discourage you, however.  John has met glorious saints, he has met hopelessly reprobate sinners, but mostly he’s met people like you and me. He said something along these lines, and even elaborated; but he summed up with, “I’ve never met anybody God doesn’t love”.

It was my turn for the irritating pause.  John asked, “What are you going to do Thanksgiving?”

I answered honestly.  “Well, John—I’m not going to any nursing homes, I’m not going to any downtown missions, not even celebrating with family or friends.  The day is going to be pretty low-key.  But darn it, I’m going to be thankful.”

I was left holding the usual baggage, wondering if my Reverend friend is an Ass or a Saint.  John seemed to have read my mind.  “My friend, you and I are asses.  But didn’t God speak through Balaam’s Ass?  Who knows?  You and I may be lineal descendants of Balaam’s Ass.  Some of us may have to look through the rubble of our life choices to find things to be thankful for.  But, there is not anybody God the Father doesn’t love!   Let us be thankful!”

I’m still thankful.  We will leave it at that, and Happy Thanksgiving.

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