Grace at Thanksgiving Time

I’ll be dining alone this Thanksgiving– perhaps as many of you– for the first time in my life. Of course, it’s sad. I’m tempted to fill the next line with a series of tearful emojis, comically expressing what is – let’s face it a bit of heartbreak – okay, actually a large slice. 

Still…

Like you perhaps, I also remember the many, many people who are hungry this time of year or homeless or, especially these days, who are ill, and I gain much needed perspective and a good dose of humility. 

Still… 

I’m not thrilled by finding my own solace in thoughts of those worse off; I want them to be fed, housed, and as healthy as I fortunately am. Misery should not have company; it should have accompaniment, partnership, advocacy – even on a holiday. 

Like you perhaps, I also have so much to be thankful for. We are going through a lot, but we’ve come through even more. The road ahead zigzags and has an daunting amount of craters and boulders, but its trajectory seems forward – toward better times I would think, even in our own Church (think Laudato Si and Fratelli Tutti, if not women’s ordination and leadership) – and I am so grateful for the resilience and vision and hard works that got – and is getting – us through. 

Still…

Like you perhaps, in company or alone, I’d like actually to be still and, just for a time, be simply thankful. Every recent year at Thanksgiving, I have read my family this excerpt from an article by Anne Lamott in the November 11, 2012 issue of Parade magazine. This year, although I won’t have them to read it to, I send it – in gratitude for you – to you. 

When Anne Lamott was growing up, her family never said grace, and, when she saw other families praying in thankfulness before meals, she longed for her family to do the same. Over the years, she and her brothers, in her words, “grew up to be middle-aged believers,” and this has been the result: 

“So now someone at our holiday tables always ends up saying grace. I think we’re in it for the pause, the quiet thanks for love and for our blessings, before the shoveling begins. For a minute, our stations are tuned to a broader, richer radius. We’re acknowledging that this food didn’t just magically appear: Someone grew it, ground it, bought it, baked it; wow.

We say thank you for the miracle that we have stuck together all these years, in spite of it all; that we have each other’s backs, and hilarious companionship. We say thank you for the plentiful and outrageous food: Kathy’s lox, Robby’s bûche de Noël. We pray to be mindful of the needs of others. We savor these moments out of time, when we are conscious of love’s presence, of Someone’s great abiding generosity to our dear and motley family, these holy moments of gratitude. And that is grace.”