Giving Thanks

When you think about it, Thanksgiving is perhaps the most American holiday of the year. It's not strictly religious nor overtly patriotic yet it's still nearly universally celebrated State-side. And it has so many great traditions -- family, turkey, football, shopping, school break, Christmas season starting, etc., that it holds for us a place of special importance.

Despite our good intentions, however, Thanksgiving is all too often merely an excuse for us to be proud of our own excesses. Rather than maintaining a focus on its theme of gratitude, that element so essential to right and healthy living, we pervert Thanksgiving to a day centered on getting more ... more whatever. It's probably a bit banal of me to preach against the evils of consumerism, and yet it remains with us, a challenge we must daily combat.

This is the first time I haven't been home for a major holiday and being away from America altogether adds to the slightly surreal feeling today has for me. The NAC does it pretty well here, but it's hard nonetheless to convince myself that today's actually Thanksgiving. Maybe it's the fact that we're the only ones celebrating it. It's an apt metaphor in general to describe the NAC as an American island in an Italian sea, but perhaps all the more so today. The rest of the city is on its daily routine, the Gregorian and the other universities hold classes, the Italian personale that work here are all here, working. And yet, we, the Americans here at the NAC, are celebrating. As we closed our turkey feast with a singing of "America the Beautiful" this afternoon, I could hear the sirens of the Italian police cars outside, the chatter of some of the Italian staff in the kitchen, the hammering of some construction being done next door.

Rather than being annoyed, however, I found this somehow fitting. Despite our American merrymaking, Italian life carried on. And despite the bustle of the usual Italian routine, we had taken time to pause and give thanks. Perhaps true gratitude is always like that, existing in a healthy tension between what we have and what we need, what we've accomplished and what we have yet to do, who we are and who we're called to become. Giving thanks, the act of thanksgiving, is never simply a reflection on all that we have but is also always a reminder that all that we have is gift. As such, though it is important to stop and give thanks, we must always also think of how this gift, these things we have and the people that we are, must be given back, given again, shared with others.

This year has, in many ways, been a hard one, for all of us perhaps, for our country assuredly, and for myself as well. For me, it's been one of preparations and transitions, realizations and new realities. I am, in the midst of it and probably because of it, thankful for so many things, so many blessings. Certainly, faith, family, country top the list, but on there as well are the daily challenges that help me to grow, the mundane details of life that require endurance, the small but real crosses that require trust in and abandonment to God. It's this attitude, one of active and humble gratitude, one of Thanksgiving, that should, especially for us Christians, envelop and animate not just one Thursday a year but every day of our lives.

To you and to yours, Happy Thanksgiving!