So For What Will We Be Thankful?
Truthfully, this year is going to test my flimsy grasp onto hope and optimism as I reflect on 2019 and consider all those things for which I should offer thanks.
Trolling the news hasn’t uplifted my spirits! We remain a country severely divided on so many issues of race, gender, political philosophy, definition of “high crime and misdemeanors,” gun control, violence, sanctity of life, school shootings, or even if there is any need for a place for religion in our scientifically enlightened culture.
I have watched old friends move away this year to enter a new and final chapter in their lives known as “retirement.” I am also quite aware that a chapter by that very name is not that far beyond my own experiential horizon.
Do I offer thanks for my clearly aging body and mind that remind me on a daily basis that I no longer possess skills I had long assumed would always be mine?
On the church front, so many dedicated members of established religious traditions (both clergy and lay members) live with delusion that good old days, large numbers and growth are just around the corner. We just need to have the proper magical formula work again – whatever that magical formula flavor of the month is!
And yet, next Thursday I will be ever so thankful to our God and Father. In spite of “clear and present danger” that the “thought police”, the “culture police”, the “dress police”, or the “food police” (among others) now dictate what is proper behavior (silly me – I always thought 10 commandments kind of said it all – didn’t need to go back to a list of 613!) I am grateful I live as a person who can think and speak and worship and write and relax as I choose.
I am grateful that while my health is experiencing the natural decline that must surely come (how damming to hear your doctor tell you that you are very fit “for someone as old as you” – Thanks), I am grateful for the health I have.
I am grateful for having been blessed with a loving companion for all these years, and perhaps someday I will write down (to be read after I am gone) all the nastiness and opposition two not-so-young persons experienced from both ecclesiastical and family sources who opposed that friendship and love. And you will know of the power of unselfish love that I have experienced.
I am grateful for every teen that has crossed my path in the various manifestations of youth ministry over the decades – not just because I have survived their rolling eyes, hateful stares, fuming exasperation, but also their concerns, their dreams, their fears, their understanding of God in their lives and even at times their secrets – simply because someone needed a judgement free zone in which to speak.
Of course I am grateful for a throw-away piece of garbage Border Collie which, as a puppy, was tossed to the streets, survived residence in a southern kill shelter, and made her way into New York and into my life. I am grateful for all the challenges and love experienced from her over the years. I am even grateful that some of you actually believe she really does talk to me.
I am grateful for the time I have been given. I hope there will be more, but if that is not to be, then let my final breaths be that of gratitude and not grumbling. I pray you all have a Happy Thanksgiving, and that you recognize all for which you ought to be grateful in spite of the darkness of our times.
Fr. Joe