If life is harsh from day to day; if we think we suffer want; if our hearts our broken; if our health is tipsy; if we think our food budget is overstretched and it is getting more difficult to pay the bills; if our home is destroyed; if we are divided--there is still a reason to celebrate our Thanks Giving for all that God has provided for us.
A few years ago, I did research on the first Thanks Givings and, naturally, giving thanks is the reason. Long before it was a scheduled holiday, people put on the best feast they could gather together to give thanks, but probably also to remind themselves that there is hope for the future, hope for a benevolent God that is, in the long run, looking out for us. They held an early thanks giving at Valley Forge. Nowadays, we want to pin down a particular "first" Thanksgiving. Traditionally, we think it was the Pilgrim's celebration of their first harvest. Official announcements recorded as history do not necessarily make an event the first event of its kind. The precedent had been set long before. When I attempted to actually track it, I found it somewhere in the old country first, a mention here and a mention there--but more of an event called at the spur of the moment, a sharing of abundance or the pretense of abundance, an excuse to celebrate, to lift spirits. Thank God for what we have! Yes, a celebration far more casual than our present tradition would imply, never mentioned as anything official--and how natural is that? Christians have always given thanks!
We thank you, Father, for all the blessings of this life.
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I'm still reading Anne Lamott's book, Grace (Eventually). I am almost finished. It happens sometimes that I enjoy a book so much that I begin to read it sparingly, a few pages at a time rather than racing through it. Although I don't think this is her best book, by far, I always enjoy her honesty and she always inspires me. So my holiday was tinted by Grace (Eventually). It took on that hue of honesty. I wanted to try my own honesty, pry it loose from my reservations on the private page. But I had forgotten to pack my journal! I'd left it sitting on the corner of the desk.
I'm getting to the age that to think about doing something does not equate to having done it, even though logic tells me that if I am prepared to, as in having assured myself that my journal was handy to take with me, I surely would. So, it didn't get slipped into the bag with my book. I was so frustrated, I almost bought another notebook except that I have four in the works right now and reading my journal is growing complex if I want to keep things in the proper time sequence.
We had an interesting holiday. Elderson keeps things lively and emotional. To remember events is to chuckle--even if chuckling didn't seem to be the emotion of the moment in its original context. He is an idealist. If there is one thing I have learned in my life, it is that striving for the ideal envisioned is suicide for joy. It is very similar to being a perfectionist. I'm both by nature. I struggle to keep idealism and perfectionism from ruining my life.
To hint at his ideals: Money is something somebody else spends . . . Teenage boys need to be more rough around the edges . . . they should like to play poker, to master dominoes and to have a brawl for the fun of it . . . and, (worst of all) since he just broke up with his fiancé last fall, hope should equate to fulfillment . . . !
I can't divulge all of it as honestly as Anne would. I don't know how she does it. In short, I began to contemplate selfishness a lot this weekend. In a very loving way, of course.
We are all selfish and all our behavior stems from our individual world views, limited by our needs, hopes, goals and brain power. I noted how we all interact. I spent most of yesterday staring out the window as we progressed from northern Kentucky through Indiana, Missouri, Kansas and finally home to Oklahoma. I composed and recomposed what I would write if I had my notebook realizing all the way that if it weren't written at that moment and the effort made to reconstruct it later, it would be as stark as the bare trees in the misty landscape outside the window.
I was amazed that I could stare at virtually nothing but bare trees and the undulations of the wintertime landscape for so many hours while my mind churned away on the subject of loving each other unconditionally and the unity of the whole family. The lumpy, knobby knitting together of such diverse individuals and the hereditary similarities that are more cause for differences of opinion than for agreement.
Don't get me wrong, it was a pleasurable weekend and not a single major problem came up. But Ike was a little disappointed in his brother. I think he is finally old enough at 17 to see Elderson as he really is. He found some limitations in Elderson's knowledge of music, for example, and that was predictable. But Ike's own ideals couldn't conceive of the fact that he and his brother love different things about music and have a different focus. It was very difficult to forgive, actually. The hero image lost some of its gloss and Elderson couldn't wear it anymore. He was also slightly offended by a couple of near angry outbursts on Saturday afternoon when Elderson was more controlling toward me than he should be and didn't treat me as respectfully as Ike thought he should. A few minutes later, I observed, Elderson had said he needed some time alone, that he isn't accustomed to having people all around all the time. I took that in the way of an apology because apologies aren't always outright. I'm the same way, I need time alone, too, and so does Ike. So, we left him to himself for a while and went shopping and by the time we returned, Elderson was gathered back together.
But this is love and this is family. I know how much Elderson loves me, how he tells me his deepest most heartfelt feelings and shares his wounded self with me. And I will always love my son with all my heart despite the fact that he is far from perfect, far from ideal and equally as human as the rest of us. I disappoint myself all the time and worse than anybody else has ever disappointed me. That was my point to Ike--because we all are as undeserving of love as anybody else, or in other words, we are all equally deserving of love as anybody else, loved for our best despite our worst. Elderson is so sensitive, so wounded by the world--and always has been. He knew a lot about music, Ike just outgrew that knowledge and has taken on the burden now of being the most knowledgeable member in the family on the subject of music. Elderson has his own special qualities and owns his own turf. He is actually more of a writer/poet than a musician. I remember that Elderson was born so happy and greeted the world with high expectations and so, ever since, everything has been downhill, a disappointment . . . and we went to Kentucky--afterall--because he needed a boost and some companionship over the holiday that marked what would have been the weekend of his wedding.
That brings me to selfishness. The more needy we are, the more selfish we will be. But the converse is not true: the more secure we are, the less selfish we will be. As I said early on, we are all self centered and that is our world view. We suffer moments of unselfishness, even surrender ourselves for short periods of time to complete selfless generosity brought on by love--but even our generosity will spring from within that self centered framework in how we perceive each other's needs and how we can meet them. Families are knit together not from choice so much as by accident. We are a bumpy weave, a colorful weave, but we are warm and fuzzy and give each other the opportunity for moments of utter unselfish devotion. Ideally (and there I go with my idealism!) we balance each other, we smooth over life's difficulties. When he is weak, I am strong and hopefully the reverse would hold true. But sometimes we end up propping each other up, like a house-of-cards, trying not to shake and, holding our collective breath, try to put another support into place. Without each other, we would all be destroyed, lost and alone. So we don't judge, we just love. We look for the cause of our distresses and discontents and forgive them. We let the past flow away like a leaf on a stream. We relish the moments worth relishing and Thanksgiving was created for that purpose. It isn't the easiness of life we give thanks for! It is having eeked out a living against near impossible odds that arouses a need to celebrate and to give thanks. It is to build hope sufficient for another year of struggle, to drag out the plough, hitch it up to the oxen and begin a new furrow; hope for another year of surviving.
So, what did the Pilgrims and the men at Valley Forge have in common with us as we celebrated this Thanksgiving? The simple, powerful, overriding need to look on the bright side, to ignore our need and what we've lacked, build hope, share love and a toast--to next year, may we all survive! God willing!
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