Thanksgiving in the United States

Thanksgiving in the United States.  We often say that no other country has a holiday like ours.  Of course, that’s not true.  Canada celebrates Thanksgiving in October.  Other countries have national holidays which include expressing gratitude for life.  Yet, the celebration of Thanksgiving in the United States has become a key tradition in our culture.

In the United States, we typically describe Thanksgiving as a time to give thanks for what we have received.  Think about that a moment.  Giving thanks for what we have received.  Does that mean rich people should be more thankful than those who are poor?  If my house has a two car garage, should the person with a three-car garage express 1/3 more gratitude than me? Is the expression of thanks somehow correlated to how much we have received?  It doesn’t seem to work that way.  In fact, the irony which I have observed is that those who live on the financial margin of society are generally more grateful for life than those who have more than their share of abundance.

As I consider the Thanksgiving story of the Pilgrim and Puritans forging a new life on the coast of what’s now Massachusetts, I don’t think these people were focused on gratitude for material things.  Given the death toll in their first winter in the new colony and the immense hardship they faced, surely they were thankful for simply being alive.

Much like those who established the European community in Massachusetts in the 1600’s, there are those who on this Thanksgiving will be thankful for simply being alive.  Some face serious health challenges who are thankful to be alive.  There are others who in the last year were caught up in violent gun assaults who are thankful to be alive.  There are those who faced situations most of us cannot fathom as refugees or in war or in other kinds of instability who are thankful to have made it to wherever they are.  What of the rest of us?  Are we thankful for the gift of life?  Do we experience gratitude for being the people we are?

Some time ago, I received training in hypnotherapy.  The trainer was a delightful man named Gerry Kein.  (His son was a colleague and Gerry has now passed from this life.)  A question Gerry often asked was this, “What do you say to yourself when you step out of the shower and see yourself in the mirror?”  Gerry’s intent was to invite us to consider what we tell ourselves “in secret” because he believed that the messages we tell ourselves are the messages we live out.  While there’s truth in what Gerry said, I’d like to consider this from a different perspective.

When you step out of the shower and see yourself in the mirror, are you thankful?  When you look at yourself, can you affirm the words of the writer from Psalm 139:  I thank you God for I am fearfully and wonderfully made!  As you stand there for a moment, do you understand, as Paul wrote in the first letter to the Corinthians, that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit? Can you give thanks for what you see?  What you experience? For the life you have, just as it is?

I’m not asking whether your doctor thinks you should lose a few pounds.  I don’t care if you think you’d be sexier with a nip here and a tuck there.  It’s irrelevant if you aren’t perfect or if your body has changed with age.  Instead, I wonder:  can we be thankful for the gift of life we have just as it is?  Can we experience gratitude for the wonder of being the people we are?  I am suggesting that if we can affirm ourselves in that intimate private moment when we step out of the shower, if we can look in the mirror and say, “I am thankful for being me,” then we have a unique gift to truly celebrate.

This Thanksgiving, I’m inviting you to change your perspective.  Step back from gratitude for what you have received.  Instead, consider what it means to be thankful for being who you are.  Yes, the person you were created to be … your best self … that’s something that should be affirmed and celebrated.

Photo by  CameliaTWU on Foter.com / CC BY-NC-ND