The Pleasures of Thanksgiving

            Cornbread stuffing with savory turkey gravy. Yams and apricots drizzled with buttery cinnamon glaze, topped with raisins and walnuts. The good ‘ol green bean casserole that I would pledge my allegiance to as much as any flag—forget turkey—I love the side dishes of Thanksgiving!

            Thanksgiving is simply my favorite non-church holiday, by far. I get immense joy out of cooking, and it’s as if the entire nation has conspired to say, “Here, take a few days off! Kick back and do your favorite creative endeavor for awhile.” 

            My anticipation of Thanksgiving is even higher this year, because my mom has moved to town. We will spend a couple of days cooking, she and I. This woman who taught me how to cook. Who taught me the art, the craft of cooking. I look forward to time with her in my kitchen, a time-honored, sacred space if there ever was one. 

            When there is good food around, cheerfulness abounds in these silly boys that I have come to love. Because someone has come before them with love to create for them, to nourish them, they will sit around a home-cooked meal talking much longer than a pre-prepared, microwave one. It’s unconscious and intuitive. Home cooking creates cheerfulness; this is another pleasure of Thanksgiving.

            Often after a big event, there is an emotional letdown. The fun is over, the assembled people dispersed. Not so with Thanksgiving! Post-Thanksgiving does not have a letdown after the celebration, because it looks forward to the biggest celebration of the year; one to be had in a month! After the meal is over and the turkey naps are taken, there are sparkly lights to string, shopping to do, concerts to hear, joy to plan, secrets to keep. 

            And of course, the biggest pleasure of Thanksgiving is the corporate moment to stop. We stop and humble ourselves; we take an accounting of the year. Even if it has been a hard one, even if our hearts have been eating gravel, there are still reasons to be thankful. If the year has been easy and bountiful, it’s even more important that our souls pause and return thanks.

            Each year as we name our reasons, my heart grows larger and weeps a little. Life is so short; it’s so hard sometimes. It’s a good and beautiful thing to have a moment to stop, to account. Individually and in families, in neighborhoods and in the nation, we name the blessings that have lightened our load, brought us joy, sustained us. We thank the God who is in all things and before all things; in Him all things hold together. 

            As we look forward to this time, this meal, let us anticipate and savor it. I bless you with the hope and prayer that you may find the pleasures of Thanksgiving. 

Memory's Antidote

            “Revision is memory’s antidote,” I heard the wise greyhair say. Antidote. It fascinates me, that. I think of an antidote as being an agent of healing, of cure. But it’s not. Antidote is the very first line of defense, the liquid that renders the venom harmless. Antidote does not cure. Poisoning has already occurred—is occurring—and antidote simply suspends the hovering death. Life continues, but if there is damage to fragile tissues, they will have to be healed through other means, other therapies. 

            Memories, venomous. There are so many, and not just because we chose to take things, people, circumstances badly. For me, revision takes the form of trying to emphasize the good moments over the hard ones. To try and remember someone as better than they actually were. But he actually wished to see you confused and heart-sick. He actually played games with your mind. He chose to hold pain over your head and crack it like an egg, dripping down, slimy-stuck. Maybe it was the power. The viper struck, intentionally. What he gained was the upper hand, making a game of what should have been as easy as getting cereal before school. 

            Revision requires effort. Revision is an intentional process. In some ways, I have been revising all my life; taking the good and shucking the bad. Keeping what I can find that is useful, clever, beautiful. 

            But revision itself—is it delusion?

            And if delusion—is that harmful? 

            “You meant it for evil, but God meant it for good,” Joseph told his perfidious brothers. God can step in and revise; he can choose that something that is meant end up saying another thing entirely. In Joseph’s case, it saved thousands of lives during a famine. And make no mistake, God is always interested in life. Not venom. Not death. 

            Revision suspends death, but is not the healing, the cure. I can tell myself a new story, and that is well and good. We live and breathe our narratives, and the narrative of death has to be arrested, stopped before it locks our lips and legs forever. 

            But the cure is more than just narrative, and it is the real work, the every day. It is the walking out in each minute the narrative that will end up bringing life, sustenance—both to yourself and to others. Narrative matters. But the doing is the life. 

            So delusion or not—I will participate in antidote, in keeping the death at bay, suspending it. I will be saved from the venom in order to gain space, room, breath to let God mean things for good. 

            Save me from the venom, bring to me the chance for good, for life. Bring me revision, memory’s antidote.