Happy Thanksgiving! When Abraham Lincoln first declared Thanksgiving a national holiday in 1863, it served as a means of healing the divisions that existed in the country as well as a time set aside to thank God for the many gifts each one knew in his or her life. The holiday is one of my favorites having escaped the gross commercialism and consumerism that engulfs Christmas. Thanksgiving remains a time to share a meal with family and friends and to recognize the good that graces us. It is also a time to pray for the world and those who are suffering in it.
In the midst of busy lives that take us in different geographic directions, my daughters and I enjoyed dinner and conversation last night. We spent today with my father, polishing off a pie for breakfast, watching the parade, and eating a turkey dinner. Later, joined by a good friend, we played cards and “Apples to Apples,” laughing until we could barely catch our breath. It felt good.
The future is an unknown; at the moment it includes graduate school for my daughters, maybe for me. Decisions loom ahead. But today, I am savoring rootedness. I am sitting in the living room where I spent twenty-some years celebrating holidays with my family. I am working in the kitchen where I baked pies and basted turkeys with my mother and her mother.
In this house I celebrated God with Us first in the love of family and then with friends, in holydays, and in sacrament. This big, old house is a good place to be as I discern direction for my future. My daughters and I will soak up the security of rootedness, of a place where we are embraced and loved unconditionally, and then we will resume our journeys confident of the love that gives wings as well as roots.
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