CIRCLE OF THANKSGIVING

At some point today I’ll sit around a table with my family to give thanks. It’s Thanksgiving...that’s what we’re supposed to do. The idea of it freezes my brain, though. I seize up wracking through the past year to choose the one or two people or experiences that I can say I am grateful for when the ‘circle of thanksgiving’ lands at my plate. That is when we go around the table and say something that we’re thankful for. Everyone usually has something...problem is, I have too much. I can’t narrow it down to a moment in time because thanksgiving is where I live my life. Every moment. Really. I can’t remember when it began, but somewhere in the wiring process of my brain, being thankful got priority. 

“Oh c’mon, Todd. You can’t be thankful for sleepless nights or people who are mean or thoughtless or subversive.” True. I am not thankful for those things...but I am thankful that in the midst of dealing with those things, God directs me to creative ways to respond to those things. Sleeplessness? I write a blog or look at the stars until I can breathe easy again and find my way back to bed. Mean people? I’m grateful that I don’t carry their baggage that makes them such pills. Subversive? I remember times when I have acted like that and I rejoice that I have been observant enough to head it off at the pass so it can do less harm to me or whoever is being sabotaged.

I am thankful for my wife, my kids, my family of choice, my friends, my faith, my church, my community, the folks who aren’t particularly “mine” but who are working hard in similar directions, trying to make the world a wee bit better each and every day, the folks who care, the folks who need caring, God (who sustains me through it all). I am thankful for laughter and thoughtful conversations, and being able to feel more fully than I used to. I am thankful for walking. I am thankful for sitting. I am thankful for football parents who cook hot dogs at high school football games on Thanksgiving Day.  I am thankful in each moment, not necessarily for the particulars of the moment, but for the grace to see beyond the particulars. It makes the “circle of thanksgiving” a challenge, but then, what a delicious dilemma to be met with.


May your plate be so full to overflowing this holiday and every day...it is enough.

Happy Thanksgiving to my readers...this turkey needs to go back to sleep.

-todd