Thanksgiving Joy

Text of meditation by Rev. Christine Ng given on November 24, 2013 at Central Congregational church based on Isaiah 12.

There’s an old story about a mother and her young son who get caught outside as a tornado roars past. The mother clung hard to a tree and to her so, but the swirling winds ripped him away and carried him off into the sky.
Distraught, the woman began to weep and pray: “Please, Lord, bring back my boy! He’s all I have. I’d do anything to have him back again. If I can just get him back I’ll give thanks and serve you all of my days.”
Suddenly the boy toppled from the sky, right into a huge pile of leaves that had settled near by that cushioned his fall. He was a little worse for wear, but basically safe and sound.
His mother ran over, helped him up, and brushed him off – her heart bursting with happiness. But then she stopped for a moment, looked at the boy, then looked to the sky, and said, “He had a hat, Lord.”
Some people – right? Actually maybe – most people? Maybe – us.
Let’s talk thanksgiving. In our culture that word has become synonymous with a particular day – a holiday – that it’s meaning has been lost. We might as well call it, “turkey day” as some do – as that’s pretty much what it has come to mean for our culture – a greeting card holiday. Google “thanksgiving” and see how many pictures you come up with that don’t involve a big turkey or pumpkins just ready to be made into pie. Makes me hungry just looking at them.

My Dad had to have the same dinner every Thanksgiving or he was not a happy man. Turkey – cooked a certain way – salt and pepper, maybe a little powdered garlic, put in the oven, absolutely no basting – basting was a sin; pan gravy, giblet stuffing, mashed potatoes, Birdseye peas and pearl onions, cranberry sauce, candied yams, rolls, coleslaw, and pecan pie and pumpkin pie for dessert. Same thing, every year, or it wasn’t Thanksgiving.
How did our national day set aside for the practice of thanksgiving, of giving thanks for what we have, for the blessings in our lives, the practice of gratitude – how did it become more about the wanting, the craving, the hunger for something – something that makes our mouths water in anticipation?
And in recent years, we’ve taken this one step further. Many people now practice thanksgiving by standing in line to buy things. Lord, I’m so grateful for what I have – so let me spend this day buying more. Wonderful.
But how often, do you think, do those things we buy on Thanksgiving Day and Black Friday bring the people who buy them joy? I’m not talking about the momentary happiness of getting something you really want or of giving gifts on Christmas Day. I mean real joy.
Adela Rogers St. Johns wrote that “Joy [is] a step beyond happiness. Happiness is a sort of atmosphere you can live in sometimes when you’re lucky. Joy is a light that fills you with hope and faith and love.”
I love the food of Thanksgiving dinner as much as the next person, but my prayer for you is that when you think of thanksgiving, you think not only of turkey dinner, but of joy. Because while we may be hungry and salivating for a turkey dinner, I believe we are starving from a lack of joy.
Some people need the numbers – they need to see things in concrete form – facts and data right there on the page. Researcher Brene Brown was like that. And through her research she discovered what spiritual leaders have been saying for a long time. She went into her research thinking joyful people were grateful people. As she said, why wouldn’t they be? They have all that wonderful stuff in their lives to be grateful for. But she found that, in fact, that the reverse was true: grateful people were joyful people. Or in the words of Benedictine Monk Brother David Steindl-Rast: “It is not joy that makes us grateful; it is gratitude that makes us joyful.”

In my studies, I’ve heard that over and over – and I believed in what is sometimes called an “attitude of gratitude.” But let me share what I have learned – it’s not about the attitude – it’s about the practice. Having a particular “attitude” or orientation if fine, but it doesn’t always translate into behavior or action. Gratitude is a spiritual practice. And there is a big difference between feeling grateful and practicing gratitude, practicing thanks-giving. And the practice of gratitude is the way to joy.
Let me unpack that a little. Often the good stuff in our lives, the blessings, are the simple, ordinary things. Like the hot coffee you may have had this morning, warming you on a cold day. Or the cereal you ate for breakfast. The fact that your car started, and you didn’t have to shovel snow to get here and that you arrived safely. Normal.
Do you know what Brene Brown says grief is? It’s the loss of normal. Any of you who have suffered a great loss in your life, think back to the time of that grief. Or talk to anyone one who has been there, in that dark place. How often do you hear: “If only . . .” If only I could have had one more breakfast with him, sitting in our kitchen, reading the paper. If only I could get one more silly text message from her.
My Dad was a doctor, and I would tell him anytime I was sick or hurt, no matter how minor it was. It became almost a ritual with us. He wasn’t much of a “kiss it and make it better” kind of a father when I was growing up, more of a practical advice kind of a guy. And that carried over into my adulthood. Still today, years after his death, when I have a medical question I think, if only I could call my Dad and talk to him about it.
And this time of year it really comes home for me, as I think, "I wish I could share Birdseye peas and pearl onions with my Dad one more time."
Normal. Everyday things. It turns out that when we lose them, it’s what we miss the most. Not the great highs, the little things. But when we’re in normal we see it as drudgery, as a chore – I hated Birdseye peas and pearl onions. We see it as drudgery, until it’s gone.
Brene Brown says that when she interviewed people for her study, many of who had gone through almost unimaginable loss or trauma, she asked them what others, what we could do to help them in their grief. She got the same answer over and over:  “If you can be grateful for what you have, it will honor what I have lost.”
Marianne Williamson writes that “Joy is what happens to us when we allow ourselves to recognize how good things really are.” And the practice of gratitude is the way to that joy, to living life from a place of hope and peace.
What do I mean by the practice of gratitude? I mean the intentional noticing, and bearing witness, to the blessings in your life, no matter how small. And there is no one right way to do this.
One traditional way is the regular practice of saying grace before meals – particularly if you also take time to give thanks for other blessings of the day, not just food. Another way is to keep a gratitude journal. To write down, every day, 3 to 5 things that you are grateful for that day. Knowing that you are going to write them down, or say them at the dinner table, makes you look for them. And the more you look for things to be grateful for, the more you find, and the more joyful you can be.
If you are more visually inclined, you could take pictures of things you are grateful for, or draw them, and keep a visual journal.
I encourage you to do this over the next week – Thanksgiving Week. Every day, do something that makes you stop and take notice of what you have to be grateful for. Keep a journal, write or draw it on a little piece of paper and stick it in a dedicated jar everyday – the whole family can do that.
For those of you who are on Facebook, I’m going to help you out. Everyday, beginning today, I will post the question on our Central Congregational Facebook page: “What are you grateful for today?” And I invite you to post a comment with words or pictures of what you are grateful for that day. It’s okay if you are grateful for some of the same things every day – like family and home. But I challenge you to look more closely, and I suspect you will find more – no matter how small. What’s the normal stuff you would miss if it wasn’t there? Share that. Because joy is additive, and another important aspect of this practice is sharing it – with others and with God. That spreads and multiplies the joy.

I know that many of us are not in good places in our lives right now. Times are hard for many, and others are dealing with grief and loss or serious illness. No one feels joyful or happy all the time. Both experiences come and go. But it is in those times, times when you may not feel grateful, you may not feel very joyful, that the practice of gratitude is even more important.
This doesn’t mean we can’t feel bad, or that we can’t complain – but if we practice gratitude, then we have a context. Ok – so this thing didn’t go so well today, but look at what I have to be grateful for. It’s not Pollyanna – it’s perspective. It’s focusing on the safely returned boy, and not on the missing hat.
     This is why we take time in most congregational meetings, in the announcements and in prayer time in worship, and in our newsletters to celebrate the good things happening here at Central and in the lives of the people here at Central. It's part if our corporate practice of gratitude.
And if we, individually and as a community, practice gratitude regularly, when things are going okay, it builds our joy reserves to help see us through the more difficult times.
I think this is exactly what the prophet Isaiah was teaching us in today’s passage. Remember, he was speaking to people who had been through hell, in many cases were still going through hell. He had told them that God would bring them through, and he was teaching them a song to sing “in that day” – the day of their salvation. But he in teaching it, he was telling them to sing, to practice singing it, today. Today.
Today, I will give thanks to the Lord. Today, God has become my salvation. Today I will tell this to all the earth. Today I will shout aloud and sing, because this leads us to joy. And in this song of gratitude, “with joy you will draw water from the wells of salvation.”
Whatever day we sing thanksgiving, it is “that day.” The day of our salvation. Thanks be to God. Amen.