The Sanctuary of Thanksgiving sits on a foundation of joy, an oak trestle table with a base built to withstand the weight and winds of circumstance. Beside it, we often find lesser tables of happiness, those quickly assembled card tables or TV trays with spindly aluminum legs that fold under the weight and winds of circumstance.
This Thanksgiving, choose joy. This Thanksgiving, feast at the table you will surely return to again and again.
In these times of political, social, and–for many of us–personal challenges, it’s tempting to wail and gnash our teeth when we don’t feel happy. And as we stew in our own juices, we may even look to others’ circumstances which we believe are so much more conducive to happiness, so much less challenging and troubling. If only I had this or that, were this or that, accomplished this or that. Then, of course, I could be happy. If only.
As a baby, I lived with my parents in a small, dingy apartment in Chicago. My father was stationed there as a “special intelligence” agent in the Army, and my mother and I were simply along for the ride. My mom told me that my crib was housed in a small, dark, windowless room off the kitchen and that my changing table sat right next to the stove. The stove! Call DHS–the baby is being changed near a heat source! Report the parents, foster the child, alert the presses!
My mom reports, too, that she and my dad ate Campbell’s soup for almost every meal. For supper, they added macaroni to make it a “real meal.” Call someone–the parents are needy, malnourished, relying on soup, soup, and more soup, for heaven’s sake!
In truth, the circumstances of our lives in Chicago were less than ideal. And yet there was joy. I see it in the black and white photographs from our days there: my mother, beaming, extending her pointer fingers as I grip and take my first steps; my father laughing and leaning over the changing table, his face inches from mine, his Army hat placed on my head, swallowing my forehead and eyes; and my baby face scrunched into wrinkles of laughter, my eyes bright with promise.
Circumstances may dictate happiness, but they have no hold over joy. In the Sanctuary of Thanksgiving, the table is always set with a bountiful feast, and joy is always the honored guest. The really good news? As large and as solid as this table is, there is an endless supply of table leaves in Thanksgiving closets. Your table will accommodate as many guests as you invite. And when others–perhaps uninvited–appear, you will welcome them with the assurance that there is always room, always enough turkey and pie.
This Thanksgiving, two of my daughters, their spouses (one spouse-to-be), my grandchildren, my son, and my husband will sit at my Thanksgiving table. But I’m setting places for others who will be with us in spirit: my Montana daughter and her husband, my sisters and their families, my brother, and my mom. And my heavenly guests? My grandparents and great grandmothers, my father-in-law, my husband’s sister and brother, and–at the head of the table–my dad.
And I want my dad to know that I’m putting several extra leaves in the table. Just for pie. Lots and lots and LOTS of pie. An entire raisin cream pie entirely for him, a perfectly baked pie with crust flaky enough to make the angels sing.
The circumstances surrounding our Thanksgiving this year–and, I suspect, many others’ Thanksgivings–are challenging. It is a holiday without some of those we love and whom we desperately miss. Still, there will be joy in our homes, enough turkey and pie to fill our bellies, and an abiding presence of love.
Do not let your hearts be troubled. You believe in God; believe in Me as well. In My Father’s house are many rooms. If it were not so, would I have told you that I am going there to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and welcome you into My presence, so that you also may be where I am.… [John 14: 1-3]
