Thursday, November 23, 2023
Thanksgiving Day in the USA
(click here to listen to or read today’s scriptures)
Being thankful
Emily Dickinson wrote a poem.
I’m Nobody! Who are you?
Are you – Nobody – too?
Then there’s a pair of us!
Don’t tell! They’d advertise – you know!
I hope at our Thanksgiving Dinner today, as we eat M&M’s in return for telling our gathering of eleven what we are thankful for, that we will not seek to outdo each other. We will not be in a hurry, resting after cooking, resting after eating, a day of rest this is, and no one needs to be famous.
Emily D did not need to be famous. Her marvelous poems were published in 1890, four years after she died at age 56. But she did seek a companion – surely she did – a “nobody” like her to share her thoughts with, share her poems, her hopes and dreams. Who does not seek such a companion, though such a companion is often hard to find? Wait and see what happens next. Watch and listen. Take a chance and look into someone’s eyes.
As Jesus approached Jerusalem, he saw the city and wept over it, saying, “If this day you only knew what makes for peace, but now it is hidden from your eyes. For the days are coming upon you when your enemies will smash you to the ground and your children within you, because you did not recognize the time of your visitation.”
Israel and Gaza have agreed to a short cease-fire, beginning today. Could the negotiators have come to any terms at all without looking into each other eyes? Those precious men and women have mostly gone unnamed, they are nobodies.
At church I have met a few men who return the eye-to-eye contact that I appreciate so much. Our greetings are heartfelt, even if we don’t see each other during the week. Armando and Dave, John and George and others, they are men I could easily spend hours with, no hurry, willing to wait on each other. We are nobodies.
The Lord spoke and summoned the earth, from the rising of the sun to its setting. From Zion, perfect in beauty, God shines forth.
We returned Monday from a birthday dinner at Scholz Biergarten, and the sunset struck us full in the face. Red sky at night, sailor’s delight. Over the course of Monday night the earth revolved, and then the sun rose on the just and the unjust. Famous, infamous, and not famous at all, we rubbed our eyes and threw water on our faces. Like our brothers and sisters around the world, we returned to our lives. Who are we? Why are we here?
We are nobodies.
God’s patience with us is sometimes unnerving to me. He is willing to watch over us without interference, knowing always, not even needing to be reminded, that his plan for us will be accomplished.
Many who sought to live according to righteousness and religious custom went out into the desert to settle there.
My hope on this Thanksgiving Day is to open my eyes so God can look within me, know my anxious thoughts, see if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.
If today you hear his voice, harden not your hearts.
 (1 Maccabees 2, Psalm 50, Psalm 95, Luke 19)
(posted at www.davesandel.net)
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