Thanks?”

Yes, I am that grouchy guy who complains that Christmas season starts way too early, and Thanksgiving gets crowded out. And I will be the guy who reminds people that Thanksgiving was first established as a national holiday (holy day) by President Lincoln in 1863. Thanksgiving as a practice goes back to at least as early as the Passover celebration, which is the first official festival practice of the Jewish people (that I am aware of). However, we could argue that Thanksgiving actually goes back to the first generation of human beings, in that Cain and Abel offered their first fruits in Genesis 4, and they must have been taught to do so by Adam and Eve. Jesus’ birth is absolutely important, and I am the guy who puts gaudy lights out every year, but let’s not forget how important giving thanks is, both for our emotional wellbeing and for our spiritual growth.

Giving thanks helps our wellbeing and our spirituality. Gratitude has long been researched as a key component of mental and emotional health. Gratitude keeps us away from feelings of inferiority, making bad comparisons with other people (bad because comparisons are usually based on faulty information), and becoming too focused on ourselves. Instead, gratitude helps us focus on others, giving us a reason to serve others, which always results in better outcomes for us. But gratitude also helps us spiritually, because gratitude forces us to consider where our blessings come from, and as James reminds us, (James 1:17) “every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows.” Gratitude, then, helps to center us in God’s will.

So, let’s give some gratitude: We live in the most prosperous country the world has ever seen, and even with all the things we believe are wrong, we are blessed beyond measure. We have a good government, even with its many flaws and many flawed public servants, and here in Hampton, we have a mayor that makes time to show up and listen. And for many of us, we don’t live hand to mouth as many do, where one crisis, one broken down car, one repair, one mistake, or one bad health news can wreck a lifetime of hard work. I realized that today, as I had to run several unexpected errands when we discovered that our cat had serious problems – I began to grumble about the bad timing, the expense of it all, when I remembered that not only could we afford to care for her, but we had the amazing benefit of having veterinarians who can help. Many people in our world can’t afford to care for themselves, much less care for their animals. Moreover, even as we see all the flaws in our country, our government, and the way things work, we can do something about it. It wasn’t that many years ago that we helped one of our staff members cover the cost of keeping himself alive, and I know he is by far not the only one we have helped or will help as a church.

Finally (for this article), I am grateful to be part of our church family. We have our problems too, but consider how many people go through life without hope, help, support, friendships, or a place where they can be accepted, warts and all. We have such a place and such an opportunity in our faith community. And the fact that we made it through the past ten years and managed to not only survive, but grow in some ways, is amazing. I read an article recently about the fact that more and more people are leaving church, and how they attach themselves to politics as a way of trying to keep what they lost when they left the church. What happens then is that they become more and more extreme, because they don’t have a community that helps them get along with people they disagree with. What happens then is that the social fabric gets torn and more problems emerge. I bet you didn’t know that simply by being part of our church family, you are blessing (being salt and light) the world around you. Yet another reason to be thankful, and yet another reason to keep on keeping on!