…and whatever you do in Word or Deed, do all in the name of the Lord, giving thanks through Him to God, the Father. (Colossians 3.17)
Rejoice always; pray without ceasing; in everything give thanks for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus. (I Thessalonians 5.16-18)
Tuesday night I was teaching a class filled with college seniors from a California campus, and a few were perplexed about, and derisive towards those great old family shows from the 50’s and early 60’s – specifically “Leave it to Beaver,” and “The Andy Griffith Show.” The sentiment was that these shows presented a fantasy, a terribly unrealistic portrait of the way things are. Then somebody mentioned Norman Rockwell in that same tone, and of course that raised my hackles – both of them. I was reminded of two of my favorite thanksgiving paintings Rockwell did for the Saturday Evening Post. One is of a family with beaming faces sitting around a table waiting for grandpa to carve the bird. It is idyllic, until one notices that it is a rather small bird for such a large family, and that the accompanying dishes are few, and their rations small. What loom large in the painting are the smiles that palpably radiate light, love, joy – thanksgiving.
A GI is sitting across a pan from his mother in the kitchen of a small house and they are peeling potatoes. The humor in the painting is that peeling potatoes is something he has probably gotten good at in the service. Also he is sitting with his feet up on the rungs of the chair like a little boy. But he seems so old, and she is so shy, so furtive as she looks to him. Here he is, home from the war, home from hell, and nothing will ever be the same. There is an invisible wall between mother and son - his experience, his persistent nightmare - that may never fully disappear. And yet, the quiet joy they feel to be sitting together in a warm kitchen is the unmistakable balm that makes the painting glow.
There was so much to say to my students, and yet I knew they wouldn’t understand. Many their age in Iraq and Afghanistan understand better than I, but these fresh, prosperous, tanned kids wouldn’t. So I just said, “After surviving the depression and saving the planet from fascism, they had earned ‘Leave it to Beaver,’ and ‘The Andy Griffith Show.’ Don’t think they didn’t know their was evil in the world.”
This may have sunk in a little. At least no one made a reply to it.
The Bible says every day has plenty of trouble of its own (Matthew 6.34), that the world will hate us (John 15.18), and that we will be persecuted (I Timothy 4.12). It also says (cf. the quotations above) we should rejoice and be thankful in everything. The two aren’t mutually exclusive, in fact the one proves the other. It isn’t that the cup is half full, or half empty, but that God has poured that cup.
President Lincoln proclaimed Thanksgiving a national holiday in October, 1863 – after Antietam, after Vicksburg, after Gettysburgh, after the worst year of killing ever (still) in our history. In his proclamation he recognizes “the unequalled severity of the magnitude” of the war, and yet he also recognizes that our blessings are great and “so constantly enjoyed that we are prone to forget the source from which they come.”
And so we do.
He therefore felt it “fit and proper” that God’s blessings “should be solemnly, reverently, and gratefully acknowledged as with one heart and one voice by the whole American people.”
And so it is. And so we will - as our parents, grandparents, and great-grandparents before us - take time to do just that this Thursday. Let us not forget that thanksgiving transcends Thursday – it is “for all” and “in everything.”
