Trying to be Thankful

For the first time in my life, I spent Thanksgiving alone. I decided not to travel to Columbia to see my family. For reasons I can't explain here, it would've meant visiting them in a restaurant and a hotel, and selfish idealism got the better of me. It was so far from "home for the holidays" that I wanted no part of it. My family actually were more okay with it than I was; I felt miserable all day and they were the ones reassuring me. As is often the case in the months of long shadow and gloom, long anticipated gatherings of family or friends often suddenly and violently lose their appeal to me as I'm getting ready or on the way, and I recoil and stay home sulking. I know I'm wrong to do it, but it's better than sulking in a crowd, which I do quite well given half a chance. If you're thinking "this man needs professional help," you're right, and I have it. It helps; it doesn't fix.

I intentionally rode south of town to where a tornado struck last week, killing three people and destroying several homes. I stopped on the side of Williamson Rd., where I could see the site of the mobile home in which two people died, and a swath of downed trees and the charred ground where homes once stood. I considered how much the victims lost, and how much I have to be thankful for. I was rebuked, but not broken. My heart is as hard as the barren ground scoured by the storm. What an elusive thing gratitude seems to me right now; seeking it directly doesn't seem to be working, so I think I'll stop.

Thanksgiving with Nebuchadnezzar and friends

I passed by the Courtneys' house and said a prayer for them. There were a lot of lookers driving around the area. After crossing the cotton fields near Mobley Store and turning back toward town, I stopped when I saw some beautiful cows. They were close, and I scrambled to get a picture of them, but by the time I'd retrieved my camera, they'd bolted away, and I scared the piss out of one of them. I thought for a minute or two about that. "The fear of you and the dread of you shall be upon every beast of the earth..." (Gen 9:2). Why is that? Beyond the fact that "every moving thing that lives shall be food for you..." (9:3), what does that signify? I'm channeling Edwards here, thinking typologically. I considered Psalm 8, "You have given him dominion over the works of your hands; you have put all things under his feet, all sheep and oxen, and also the beasts of the field" (Psalm 8:6-7). Nothing dawned on me, so I asked the question, threw a leg over the bike, and kept riding. Now that I'm home, though, I think there might be more to ponder in the phrase at the end of Gen 9:2 "Into your hand they are delivered" and the New Testament's application of "all things under his feet" to Christ's lordship over all things including death (1 Cor 15:25-28; Heb 2:5-9). Hands and feet and animals and death and Jesus. What's that all about? Not sure, but I'm pretty sure there's a goldmine just under the surface where those texts converge.

I wanted to ride back by the site of the worst damage and get a picture. I'd refrained on my first pass because I thought it would be insensitive, but I saw a section of forest away from the homes damaged that I thought I could capture, so I looped back around on S Rambo and 324, where I passed this:

What struck me was the thought being thankful, not just giving thanks. Like the NIV's mistranslation of James 1:22 "Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says." Just do it, huh? Trouble is that's not what it says. Γίνεσθε δὲ ποιηταὶ λόγου καὶ μὴ μόνον ἀκροαταὶ παραλογιζόμενοι ἑαυτούς. Wow, after looking up Γίνεσθε I feel even more strongly. "Become"; it signifies a change of condition, state, or place. Literally it reads "Become (but) doers of word and not only hearers deceiving yourselves." No lie I had an argument about this with an imagined opponent as I rode away from the sign. If you ever wonder why I'm so quiet on bike rides, it's not because I'm not talking, it's just I'm talking to people only I can hear. Okay, so what's the big deal? "Become a doer of the word" or "do the word" are saying the same thing. Isn't it just semantics? I've already written plenty here and here trying to prove the point that it's closer to life and death than it is to semantics. We don't change the fruit on a tree by stapling store-bought apples onto the tree, we give the tree good soil and water and light. I'm thankful for my friend Ellen's advice to cultivate thankfulness through mindfulness. I'm still struggling with my mind's tendency to see all glasses half-empty, but at least the demon is named and I can fight the battle where it rages. 

I rode back to the site of the worst damage. You can see the trees broken and stripped of leaves in the center. 

You can also see my shadow, which I didn't notice, the same way I didn't notice that I was being watched as I captured this. I turned around and saw a man and woman sitting in their carport with several cars, but nothing but a few bulldozers where their house once was, and a smoldering fire consuming the last of the rubble. I was embarrassed. I didn't want to treat their suffering as a spectacle for my curiosity, even if dozens of cars per minute were doing just that, but I'd been caught. I stood there for a minute feeling uncomfortable, and then waved. Actually I think they waved first. I rolled onto the pavement, and the woman said "You can hardly recognize it, huh?" 

"Yeah." 

"Glad y'all weren't riding out here that night; it came through about the time y'all normally do." 

I talked to them for a few minutes, trying to show some measure of appropriate sympathy, but it wasn't much use. How do you console someone you just met who's sitting in their metal carport next to a patch of dirt that used to be their house--on Thanksgiving? Rather, they were the ones showing kindness to me, in part because they'd received such grace in the midst of tragedy. Albert (I think that was his name), the 80-year old father, was home when the tornado struck; two family members hid under the couch, and the next thing he knew, the roof collapsed. He received a few scratches. His house had seven fireplaces, which are particularly dangerous in violent storms, but all of them exploded or crumbled. Their neighbors across the street lived in a mobile home and were both killed. Sue said, "I've never seen one before, but I can say now that I've seen a miracle." She also told me how amazed she's been at how many volunteers they had helping them clean up.   I asked them about their house, and they said they're planning to rebuild. "We're thankful. We can replace a house, but we can't replace each other." I thanked her for letting me stop by. "Sure, you're welcome to stop by any time." What beautiful people. 

I rode away struck with my own ingratitude and selfishness. In moments like those, I sometimes think I'd better be grateful for what I have; it might be taken away from me. Then by legalistic reflex, I "thank" God, fearing the possible consequences if I'm not thankful. I'm not sure what that is, but I don't think it's gratitude.    

Hebrews 12:28 says "Therefore let us be grateful for receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, and thus let us offer to God acceptable worship, with reverence and awe." Literally "therefore, a kingdom unshakable receiving, let us have grace." It's been said that thanksgiving isn't giving out of our abundance; it's receiving such abundance so deeply that it overflows back to its source. That's the secret, but it's so true that "there's nothing harder than learning how to receive":