Thanksgiving 2020
Thanksgiving 2020 sounds like an oxymoron, doesn’t it?
It seems crazy to be grateful and joyful when so many things aren’t the way we want them to be.
And yet:
It is because things aren’t perfect—not in spite of imperfection—that thanksgiving is so important.
Some thoughts (and pics!) from Thanksgiving 2020.
When we stopped reading through Psalms in September, I started to read one psalm a day right over again. I set a little widget in my phone to remind me of what psalm I’m on—and last week on Thanksgiving Day I read Psalm 79, which is a bitter, desperate psalm. It begins like this:
Psalm 79
A Psalm of Asaph.
1 O God, the nations have come into your inheritance;
they have defiled your holy temple;
they have laid Jerusalem in ruins.
2 They have given the bodies of your servants
to the birds of the heavens for food,
the flesh of your faithful to the beasts of the earth.
3 They have poured out their blood like water
all around Jerusalem,
and there was no one to bury them.
4 We have become a taunt to our neighbors,
mocked and derided by those around us.
The psalmist is writing from the time of exile, after Jerusalem was destroyed by Babylon in 586 BC and the Israelites were carried off into Babylonian captivity.
After lamenting all the horror all around him and crying out for help, the last verse of the psalm pivots, and it caught my attention:
13 But we your people, the sheep of your pasture,
will give thanks to you forever;
from generation to generation we will recount your praise.
In exile, after seeing his nation destroyed and his loved ones killed, the psalmist still stubbornly refuses to give up giving thanks.
I think there’s a lesson there for us, as 2020 comes to a close.
One of our problems is that we are so comfortable that we have forgotten that most people, most of the time, haven’t been.
Most people throughout history—and most people in the world today—deal with constant discomforts. Unfortunately, we have become deluded into thinking that life should be free from discomfort, and so when things become difficult—as they inevitably do—we are unable to have proper perspective. Because there are things in our lives and in this world that are far from perfect, we have a hard time with the idea that we should nevertheless give thanks. We focus on what’s wrong rather than what’s right—we look at what we lack rather than what we have.
This tendency to focus on what’s wrong is why so many of us are so miserable—despite being wealthy beyond the wildest dreams of most people who have ever lived, despite never having to worry about food, shelter, clothing, or water, so many of us are unhappy for so much of the time.
One of the reasons we resist thanksgiving is that we (incorrectly) believe that giving thanks will make us complacent in the face of obvious wrongs in the world. On the contrary, however, thanksgiving doesn’t make us numb—it makes us grateful. And it is my experience that grateful people have greater strength to persevere when things get difficult. You want to make a difference in this world? You’ll need perseverance.
Bluebird Ranch
So, we were committed to give thanks this year, and we had a great Thanksgiving 2020, in spite of some major things in our lives not being how we want them to be.
Or, better: we had a great Thanksgiving 2020 because some major things in our lives are not how we want them to be.
We always head down to Bluebird Ranch for Thanksgiving—the ranch Elaine’s uncle and aunt have outside of Utopia, TX, about 2 hours west of San Antonio.
Normally, we have a huge Friendsgiving when neighbors from all along the valley join us in the barn for a great Thanksgiving dinner. This year things were different for obvious reasons and Friendsgiving was cancelled. Even though it was just our family around the Thanksgiving table, it was a blessing nonetheless.
I love seeing my kids run around outside from dawn to dusk;
I love being somewhere my phone doesn’t work and there’s no television;
I love seeing the night sky and hearing nothing.
Then, the Sunday evening after Thanksgiving we got our family Christmas tree back here in Dallas.
There’s just something about a Christmas tree that makes me feel hopeful. Despite all the ugliness in the world, there are still so many beautiful things that remain
So, this week I’ve been sitting in the dark by our lit Christmas tree every morning, praying and sitting still and thanking the Lord. I am so blessed.
May these next few weeks be a blessing to you and yours, too.
One good thing about drought conditions—the big fish are easier to catch, especially if you have an angling assistant.
I’ve become a fish-kisser, I guess.
And yes, we threw this big papi right back in the water. Maybe next year we’ll catch him again.
Texas immigrant + the Sam Houston of pastors.
Local golf-cart chauffeur + your humble correspondent.
Sunset.
Moonrise.
Back home. My early morning prayer chair on the right.
