Practicing Thanksgiving

If you haven’t noticed by the recent lack of blog content, I’ve been in a bit of a creative slump lately, but I knew writing something for the blog would be good for me. And in thinking about what I wanted to write about, I hit another wall. But Thanksgiving seemed a relevant topic as any. Turns out, it was something I really needed to reflect on anyway.

In my family, we have a tradition on Thanksgiving where before we eat, we go around the room and each say one or two things that we’re thankful for. Usually, they’re the big things. Family. Friends. Food on the table. A roof over our heads. Sometimes the big things are the easiest to be thankful for. What’s hardest is the day to day, the small things we take for granted, the bright spots in each day that we so easily pass by in the busyness of life. I’ve learned in the last few months that paying attention to these small things reframes my own daily “thanksgiving” and gives me much more peace.

Fall leaves <3

I owe a lot of these thoughts to the Philosophy class that I’m currently taking. Over the course of the semester, I was slowly growing more and more discontent, and this was giving way to feeling anxious and restless. I had a list of things I wanted, like I was a greedy child demanding a running Christmas list from my life. And most of the things on that list weren’t even material. I was discontent with several aspects of my life (including being in a lovely creative slump), and I didn’t even realize that it was affecting my mind and body as much as it was.

Then my Philosophy professor began giving us thirty minutes at the end of each class for “spiritual exercise.” It sounds a bit flower-child, but he kept this very open-ended. We could pray, we could take a walk, we could read, we could just sit still if we wanted to. One day, I went for a slow walk around campus. The brutal Illinois winter has started descending upon us, but this one particular day was lovely and fall-ish. Most of the trees had lost their leaves already, but there was a huge tree in front of the music building that held bright, golden leaves that still clung to the branches. Maybe it was the Marilynne Robinson we had just studied in class, but I saw the big golden tree and then it just hit me: How could I ask any more out of life than I already have?

Christmas is another great time to be thinking about this. America has basically turned Christmas into a capitalist holiday (and it seems especially ironic that Black Friday—a day dedicated to shopping—falls the day after a day dedicated to giving thanks), and it’s easy to be greedy instead of grateful. It’s easy to focus on what could be instead of what is. Sometimes, that impulse is a good thing, as we dream of a better world, justice for everyone, a safe home for the polar bears, a world with a little (or a lot) more love in it. But I find my problems coming from the “could be”s for my own itty bitty world. I could have better clothes. I could look a different way. I could be more successful. And then the unrest comes. Peace comes when I love my present, and not my dreamed-up future.

A peaceful, snowy morning

The gold leaves fell just a few days after my walk, but since that day, I’ve tried to look for other “gold leaves,” so to speak. And Thanksgiving seemed like a good time to be on the hunt for things to be grateful for. Specificity helps. I’m thankful for my family, but I’m thankful for my mom making my favorite meal when I come home from college and my dad and I laughing over a Babylon Bee headline. I’m thankful for my friends, but I’m thankful for nights eating take-out on the floor and watching Gilmore Girls, saying “good morning” to my roommate, hugging friends I haven’t seen in a month or a week. I’d say I can still be quite demanding from life—it’s only been a few weeks since I’ve recognized my chronic ungratefulness—but I’m much less anxious, much more at peace.

There’s still a lot that’s really wrong with this world. There’s war, disease, and poverty. There are messy relationships, broken hearts, brutal cold, and stupid dorm washing machines. But there are also corny jokes, white Christmases, sweet potato casseroles, and chunky college squirrels. So much of this world is beautiful and worth being grateful for. It’s not worth being greedy when there are trees made of gold.