RBWords

     At the closing service of a parish mission, there is a moment which terrifies me.  It is the moment when I must express my gratitude to the pastor and all the people from the parish who work with me to make the parish mission experience a fruitful one.  It terrifies me because I worry about leaving out someone who should be thanked!  On a national day of Thanksgiving, that worry gets a little bigger!  It's easy enough to begin with gratitude to God for life and love, but then the list (at least in my life) goes on and on!  I suppose one could simply use the "category" approach and be thankful for family, friends, shelter, clothing, employment, food (especially since food tends to occupy a central place in the Thanksgiving celebration).  One "category" that I would surely want to include in my Thanksgiving is my "Beloved Congregation" who patiently read this preaching on a regular basis!  Others of us will have other categories.  For me it is important not to let thanksgiving become impersonal.  I want to "put skin on it."  

     I will be spending the day with family members in my hometown of Natchitoches, LA, about four hours' drive north of Houston, TX.  I am now the oldest member of my immediate family and that confers some vague patriarchal status!  Gathering with family and friends is one of the more obvious ways of  "putting skin on" Thanksgiving.  Another way is offered to those who spend this day serving meals to the homeless and poor who would otherwise not be able to eat a Thanksgiving feast.  However we may do this, I pray our Thanksgiving "thanks-giving" will be truly profound and heartfelt - with skin on it!  The old hymn says it well: Now thank we all our God, with hearts and hands and voices; who wondrous things has done, in whom this world rejoices...  AMEN