Clergy from left, Deacon Cynthia Biddlecomb, retired; Pastor Nicolé Ferry, Associate Rector Lynn Finnegan and Pastor Deb Church. Courtesy photo

By Deacon Cynthia Biddlecomb
ELCA

Is it just me or are other people annoyed that Thanksgiving gets short shrift this time of year? Because Halloween sells candy and Christmas is the busiest buying season of the year, our national day of thanks, stuck in between those two commercial seasons, gets little attention. Is it so difficult for us to show some gratitude, at least once a year? 

People of faith are encouraged to thank the divine for the blessings of this life. Both Hebrew and Christian scriptures are full of statements of gratitude to God. Memorizing some of these would be a good task this season, giving us words of thanksgiving for the blessings of life. Followers of Christ read words of gratitude that Jesus spoke quoted throughout the Gospels. We might follow Christ’s example and walk in gratitude, despite the suffering within and around us.

Americans, especially, have a problem with being thankful. We’d rather celebrate the things we have earned and done for ourselves than thank God for being there every step along our way. Perhaps we find it easier to wallow in the pain and angst of existence than to rise above it and thank God for what we’ve been given. 

Perhaps that is why Thanksgiving Day was instituted in 1863. In his Proclamation of Thanksgiving, Abraham Lincoln spoke of the abundance of the fields, seas and mines, the bountiful harvests, even while that horrible Civil War was impacting everyone and everything around him. Within his Proclamation, this one sentence of Lincoln’s gratitude stands out:

No human counsel hath devised nor hath any mortal hand worked out these great things. They are the gracious gifts of the Most High God… 

We are right to grapple with American history; shame is appropriate for what our forebears did in stealing land and exterminating its residents. On a recent visit to Plimouth-Patuxet Plantation in Massachusetts, I noticed the museum acknowledge that the Massasoit, leader of the Patuxet band of the Wampanoag, sent people to help the Mayflower settlers learn how to plant and harvest from the land around them. Devastated by their loss, within that first winter, of half the people who came over with them on the Mayflower, those who survived were grateful to their neighbors for their help. The people of Patuxet, themselves devasted by diseases brought by earlier European traders, understood the desperate need to survive. In return, these Europeans would be good friends to have as other tribes challenged the Patuxet. Though relations between the Wampanoag and Europeans would unravel in future generations, the first harvest in 1621 was something for both the Patuxet and Plimouth communities to celebrate.

But what have we to be grateful for, you ask? Most of us have no problem surviving physically. But our minds are troubled, and our spirits rubbed raw by constant news of what people do to other people. Turning to God and expressing our gratitude for what we have can overhaul a despairing attitude. This week let’s try to wear an “attitude of gratitude” to assuage our troubled hearts. And let us thank the Most High God for all the blessings of this life. Amen

Editor’s note: ‘All Shall Be Well’ is a semi-monthly column written by local women clergy (pastors and deacons) including, ELCA Deacon Cynthia Biddlecomb, M.Div., retired (czoebidd@gmail.com); Nicolé Ferry, Pastor, Bethlehem Evangelical Lutheran Church (pastornicole@bethluth.com); Lynn Finnegan, Assistant Rector, The Episcopal Church of the Holy Faith, Santa Fe (rev.lynn@holyfaithchurchsf.org) and Deb Church, Pastor, White Rock Presbyterian Church (pastor@wrpchurch.com).