Thanks for the Giving

This week is known across the United States as Thanksgiving week. A great deal of effort and resources will be focused on giving. Conversations this week among your coworkers, friends and family will almost certainly contain some reference to Thanksgiving and attempts to define the meaning of Thanksgiving will be offered. The media will join in and expand the conversation to provide a national perspective. Food drives and donations will be increased to assist those that are in need and so deserving of our assistance.

I think the focus on giving is entirely warranted but I also think that Thanksgiving has become an opening act to the main event of Christmas which has certainly become a money grab. The prevailing story is that Thanksgiving came about as a sort of grand celebration of Pilgrims and Indians to thank god for his favors. No one can say if this event occurred or not because none of us were there but I’m not here to quarrel if the event did or didn't occur.  Thanksgiving isn't an event or holiday that comes around once a year. Thanksgiving is a spirit that was birthed in you the moment you accepted your first breath. 

For me, Thanksgiving simply means to thank God for the opportunity to give. The problem now is that we have been guided, primarily through television, to think that the act of giving can only be expressed by spending money and that giving has to be excessive and grandiose for it to have meaning. We know this isn't true for it was our dirt poor ancestors that had nothing of value that exemplified the true definition of Thanksgiving. It was the simplicity of their giving that remains as a practical manifestation of Thanksgiving. It was their small daily inspirations spoken into us that drove us to overcome and excel. Their words of encouragement and support would travel through the generations to lift heads, straighten backs and move steps forward. It was the woman telling her man through a tender touch and a believing eye that he could whip whatever foe life put against him because she was beside him. It was the sacrifice of the man to work not for his wants but for the needs of his family and when those needs were met he would continue to work to see that their wants were met as well. It is me opening the door for an elderly woman as her arthritic hands struggle to grasp the handle. It is the man that aids the woman struggling to load her groceries and get her children out of the rain with only the expectation that someday another man will do the same for his family. It is you as a mother or father reading to your child for 10 minutes everyday. It is the teenager “keeping it real” with his peers about getting an education, abstinence and acting in a responsible manner. It is the corporation that is willing to return a little more of their profits to the company so their employees can earn a living wage. 

God put the spirit of Thanksgiving in you and in all of us. Television and the media may have redefined the spirit, forced it down inside of you, bound and gagged it but it can never be silenced. Through your awareness the spirit will extricate itself and once again thrive inside of you and all the encounter your presence will receive for the spirit of Thanksgiving will beckon you to give and in giving you are thanking God for the opportunity to give.