As Thanksgiving Day approaches, it is also time to consider how to approach the very concept of thanksgiving. In the Bible, thanksgiving is mentioned in any number of passages and in any number of books. It is considered from the Bible to be part of the relationship with the Lord and part of the gift of the relationship, as the ability to give thanks is a gift. Within the constructs of our lives, there can be obvious and perceived shortfalls. There is the story in the gospels of the ten lepers who were healed by Jesus, really something that was of an impossible nature back then unless something miraculous took place, yet only one gave thanks for the intervening healing. This story shows that there is a generalized and also specific room for improvement with thanksgiving, especially with something like this, which is a healing that gave these individuals a pass to cross a previously impassable bridge. The thanksgiving was an invitation to further connect with the personalized presence of Jesus to these individuals first experienced in their miraculous healings. There is a rush to many things in modern society but one of the things that doesn’t always seem to be a rush is to give thanks. I heard an hour long talk within a service this past evening. It was interesting and related to thanksgiving day and as the talk went on, I figured I better take out a pen and write down a couple of notes if it is going to be that long. The talk was given by Father Michael Moses from Trinidad and he spoke of God’s love as containing lavish, unmerited and underserved grace. Then he said" Grace is available in places of the greatest sin." He spoke of how we look at the mud instead of the stars, and we have all heard that before, but it struck me in a different way this time. It doesn’t take much to simply look up at the stars if the sky is clear for them. It is not like the view of the good many times is in any way obscured. I was thinking of a hike in Many Glacier Valley in Montana's Glacier National Park, a valley only miles away from the Canadian border, a couple of summers ago. Myself and two friends started this hike which was 6 miles plus in at say 4 in the afternoon. 6 or 7 miles on the high winding trails is not the same as walking down the street on a flat surface for 6 miles and this hike took some time to get to the desired location of a high elevation mountain lake reputed to have beautiful arrayed colors of the waters, with a light colored pristine blue. The name of the lake, Craker Lake, belied it’s beauty. This hike was the idea of a friend, who gave me a lift to Canada a couple of days prior in exchange for the company on this hike, which he wanted to get in before leaving for home. This trail was different even for the immediate area, it had the feel of a lush even haunting Brazilian thick mountain forest, and the weather was misty to the beginnings of a light rain as we started out. Ominously, only one person came in the opposite direction and he seemed like a lost soul from a Grizzly Adams episode. I supplied the pistachios. We make it to the higher elevation lake and lingered for a while and chatting with a small group of campers who had their food on a high pole because of the bears in the area. As we proceeded back, darkness began to fall, slowly than quickly and soon it was also raining lightly to a medium rain. The trail was getting muddy. For flashlight and a light that one friend supplied which is used by the army lit up the whole path, it was otherwise an enveloping darkness with no moonlight coming through.. The female friend of the group was hiking briskly and impressively all the way through as we proceeded back at a steady brisk pace, despite her having been involved in heavy duty sit down studying before her trip to Montana. The psychology is such that, if I were by myself, I would have been pretty spooked by the circumstances of enveloping darkness on a trail in arguably the most remote area of the lower 48 states. This particular part of the park is know as a great habitat for bears and the immediate area, even this exact trail, contains the most grizzly’s in the lower 48 states. With two other people, the situation becomes more of something to share with humor as the company of others totally shifts the focus. Something to be thankful of then is the company of people and the need for company is really attenuated in situations like this, where it can be more brushed aside with the mechanisms of modern society. So I had everybody turn off the lights as we proceeded in darkness for say half a minute at time just to tune in to that sense of foreboding if we really didn’t have lights. When the lights went back on, we spotting fresh, very large grizzly tracks next to our footprints from on the way earlier. I can still remember how those tracks looked under the military spotlight my one friend was carrying and how they proceeded a bit down the trail indicating that the grizzly or grizzlies could still be right nearby. A grizzly could indeed have been right off the trail, lurking in the darkness. This is not to say bears are automatically hostile, but this is their house. After going on for an hour and a half like this on dark winding high mountain trails with looming forest high above us, we make it back without incident to the Many Glacier Hotel. As we relayed the story to others, the one friend told the others about the grizzly tracks and how I led the hike as they stayed back a bit. He said he had his camera ready for the picture if a bear jumped out on me. The moral of this story, is how even the mud can be part of the wildness of nature in its uncontainable form and it was certainly a memorable moment seeing freshly minted grizzly tracks in the mud on this hike. The mud was like the stars that night in how it communicated mystery. The artificial light provided by the spotlight and flashlights revealed clear evidence in the mud of the nearby presence of one of the great creatures of the wilds in the wilds, and seeing this was almost as mysterious as the falling stars you could see in Montana on a clear night. Note that it is recommended hiking in areas like this in the park to have a group of at least 4 people, and also never to continue the hike into the darkness. Another point in this talk of the previous evening was when Father Michael Moses said jokingly," you can thank the Lord for even a dollar, now stretch it." This is one of the pitfalls of thanksgiving. We do get momentarily something we really do want. Maybe that one cherished account from work does come through. But immediately the math goes to somewhere else and the engines are started for counting even more. So even though, this particular event highlights how we can at least at times get what we really want, we want to get this all the time and we don’t give thanks for this particular time or times and go into the pertinence and relevance of this particular event and how it something we can be thankful for now. Even this joke, putting in the caveat of stretching this, thanking the Lord for something and asking for a continuance of this or stretching of this, is better than not thanking at all. I was discussing this after the service with a couple of people, and I brought up the miracle of loaves. I said, someone might have wanted to see the full multiplication of the loaves and fish, before commencing to any type of thanksgiving, rather than thanking for just say one fish. A good point was raised by one of the guys in the discussion. Sometimes you do get something, and you are waiting for something added to this or something more, and then you will get to business of thanksgiving. But you may not get the next thing, as you don’t know God’s designs even for the day. So don’t be waiting for the next thing which indeed you may not get, before giving thanks. The better thing to do is be thankful for the one thing, such as say landing that one great account at work, as it happens. You may land another great account soon, or you may not. It is natural that people want many bases covered, but the material for thanksgiving does appear at base 1 and thanksgiving can be given then. Maybe those former lepers were jumping ahead for the next blessing and didn’t stop to give thanks at base one to the source of these miracles, the person of Jesus. You think of the marathon runner, who has to hit a water stop for replenishing fluids on the way to the final 26 mile plus finish line. The water is placed in key spots throughout the event, not just near the finish line because obviously the runners need water at various points, not just at the final turn to the finish line. In a sense, thanksgiving is a tool that we have within our grasp along the way, just as water is available to runners along the way in a marathon provided by those helping for the race. The help is not just at the end. Thanksgiving acts as an aid to us along the way. As an aside, the evenings discussion also went to angelic help. One person said she got the idea from Padre Pio for when she gets into disputes with people, she asks her gaurdian angel to talk to their guardian angel. And she said regarding this that we have so much help available through angels that we do not go to. In the same way, we need to think about the replenishing gift of thanksgiving not only at the end of journey’s where a final tally is being made, but also on the way, and especially in uncertain journeys, when it is best to be thankful for what is now up front and present. Don't wait for the final trumpet.
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