Editorial: Simply Thankful

A cool shower, a warm jacket on a cool day, a blanket and a good movie, and/or a meal of your favourite comfort food. We have sooo much in this land we live in. Yet, there are those who don't have these simple things. A genuine way to appreciate this properly, is to make an effort to help others be able to experience some of these as well.

There are many efforts in our coverage area, from city, municipal, and provincial programs to various church and para-church outreach works, happening. What is needed, by each, is hands and hearts. Hands to reach and assist those in need and hearts to convey the genuine care and concern for those who need the touch of love. Money is always needed but never replaces the active participation or real patient people. I can hear the knee-jerk response of some, thinking, 'I've earned the things I have. I'm grateful, but why should I give that away? Can't they just get a job and earn it too?'

Well, you may not realize it, or you may never have given it thought, so that's why you haven't seen it, but circumstances have to conspire together so a person can find a job and keep it, especially today, when companies are barely keeping themselves in the black. They have to hire people for only a short while to reach the next point of success. This leaves the job market fickle. Some areas are struggling to find good, committed workers, while others cannot keep enough work to keep good employees. In these climates, it can make it hard for an employer to invest the time to help a new person grow in the skills they need. Still, people need time to grow, even if they are seasoned workers. Time is needed for a new employee to adjust to the way in which things are done in a particular company. Those who have little experience or a measure of personal struggles can be looked at as an inconvenience and a drain on time and others' personal energy and productivity. This can provoke the thought of just cutting the loss and letting a person go, leaving them back in the vacuum of cold and hardheartedness on the streets, within the safety of the next needed paycheck.

So, is it on us or on them? The answer is YES! We have an obligation to every life we meet, every life! It's one of reciprocity. The idea, of cause and effect. When a stone is cast in the water, the waves move out in concentric rings, and even though the farther they go, the smaller the effect may seem, they do reach and influence the shore on the other side of the lake. This is like every action we take or choose not to take. You see, when we choose not to act, to show kindness or patience to another, that is still an action. It's like when you expect to be able to lean on a wall to catch your breath because you just went through some exhausting ordeal, and the wall is an illusion. You would fall through and collapse, maybe injuring yourself in the process. So this could leave a person in worse shape than before they reached out to trust the wall. So, if you find you are nervous to interact with those in need, be they in the local coffee shop, on the street and asking for help, or a neighbour over the fence, just remember circumstances have probably conspired to bring them to their point of need.

You've heard the phrase, "But for the grace of God, there go I." It's a statement of empathy, the realization, many of the elements of what one can be thankful for are not of one's own doing; instead, they are an outflow of the grace being "dispensed" through opportunities we have 'stumbled into.' This statement affirms the effort of God, on our behalf, to get us through these doors in life.

As far as nervousness is concerned, a simple short scripture addresses this. "The one who is gracious to the poor lends to the LORD, and the LORD will repay [them] for [their] good deed[s]." Proverbs 19:17 New English Translation (NET). This is a kind of lending ourselves to the use of the Lord as He reaches those in need with the thankfulness we revel in our lives. Like walking around among people with a full bucket of clean water, some of it is gonna spill on others, or maybe we can even pour some out on purpose and know lives, dry and dirty from circumstances, are refreshed and become a little cleaner. Like the scripture says here, the Lord will repay you for your good and you may wind up having even more overflow to share as you go forward.

The first Thanksgiving was celebrated by settlers, on their first harvest, at Plymouth Colony, the site of their first landing. There was the sharing of fowl, like pheasant, geese, and other wild birds. It is written the colony ate corn and herbs and what they gleaned naturally, like mussels, lobsters, grapes and plums.

They were generously received by a nearby indigenous people, the Wampanoag, who hunted and brought five deer to the celebrations. Their leader, Massasoit, and ninety others from the village, shared in the mutual Thanksgiving to God the Creator for the harvest and bounty of friendship. The celebration lasted three days. It wasn't a hit-and-run approach; there was plenty of time to genuinely begin to grow connections and real friendships. This increased the sense of security for both groups of people, as protection of each life, increases in numbers. Interesting; people, worlds apart, came together in a common celebration to the Creator of all things. Talk about an environment of food insecurity! We have nothing to hold back for, really.

This Thanksgiving, let's share the comforts we so richly enjoy, especially our ability to engage with others. We all have need. Maybe, where you don't even realize you have much, this can begin to fill the vacuum in another's life.

Being Thankful on Thanksgiving, Huh, what a concept.

Happy Seasoning!