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Thanksgiving Day celebrations usually involve many kinds of food, including dishes that represent local and family traditions. Giving thanks to those who prepare and set forth the food, as well as to those who provide the location and who offer the invitations, is common courtesy. Giving thanks to God for what we receive at a Thanksgiving meal is even more well deserved but only occurs to those of us who believe that God is the source of all goodness.
Just as there is no law commanding us to thank family members or friends who arrange for a Thanksgiving Day meal, we are not obliged to give thanks to God for that specific celebration or for anything else. However, when we let opportunities pass by and do not give thanks to people or to God, we lose a precious moment for making an outlay from the unlimited supply of goodness of which we are capable. It is like leaving a delightful meal with family and friends only to engage in some personal activity on our own. There is no joy or more personally fulfilling experience than giving thanks.
For a positive reflection, we can review our recent past and notice that at no cost to us we received peaceful contentment in those small incidents when we gave thanks to people for the good things they had done for us. In an even deeper way, whenever we chose to thank God for something recent or ongoing, our appreciation grew for whatever it was for which we gave thanks. Expressing gratitude confirms and affirms the goodness we have received, much like savoring a favorite food instead of merely eating it as something of no interest that happened to be within reach.
We do not create our affinity for giving thanks, nor the positive consequences for doing so. Rather, we are created by God who is all-good, and we resonate like the strings of a well-tuned musical instrument when we acknowledge goodness in other elements of God’s creation, especially fellow humans, but also in food, all necessities of life, and everything that is beautiful, true, and good. We have within our ordinary capacities the possibility of exercising honesty and generosity whenever we give thanks, for it is from us a personal gift of integrity and of love. We are not required to give thanks, but when we do so truthfully and with appropriate care for those whom we thank, we become more like the images of God we are created to be.
Thank God that we can give thanks, for doing so makes us fully human, moving us closer to our ultimate purpose in life: union with God who is love.
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Certain football rules allow for a specific player on the team to be in motion just prior to the ball being put into play. We have many other uses for the expression “in motion” especially when we wish to convey the opposite of “at rest,” or “immobile.” Many of us think of ourselves and most others as being in motion during most of our waking hours. Some of us have discovered that we even moved after we fell asleep because we found ourselves in a different position once we awoke.
The Pre-Christmas praying season, “Advent,” which begins this year on Sunday December 30, is vastly different from the pre-Christmas advertising and shopping season which began whenever commercial enterprises started their “Christmas” sales or whenever people started putting up lights and decorations in their homes or businesses. For those who enjoy the season of Advent, many customs and practices are put in motion right from the first day of the season. Scripture readings in worship services and in prayer books change on this day to correspond to Advent, and so too do the themes of music and preaching as well as visual arts and communal activities.
The season of Advent is arranged precisely to move our minds and hearts to reflect and wonder at all the prophecies and faith-inciting events that led up to and accompanied the birth of Jesus, and to discover for ourselves how humanly God loves us in becoming one of us. Whatever we set in motion is, of course, according to our initiatives or willingness to act accordingly. However, God is present and active in and through all that we do, and the sole initiator of much more, including the consolations and inspirations which occur in us when we focus on the deep mystery of God becoming one of us in the person of Jesus.
Many Churches and homes include Advent wreaths, with their four candles corresponding to the four Sundays of Advent. The color of the season is some shade of purple, which psychologically is the color of longing and expectation. Although Christmas music is often heard wherever we go, and perhaps in our homes as well, Churches feature Advent music that encourages reflection on both the long years of prophetic sayings about a coming promised Messiah and the shorter time of an expectant mother, Mary, and the human and divine interactions that lead up to the birth of Jesus that is celebrated at the Christ Mass on December 25.
Welcome to Advent, the season for believers when so much that is meaningful and beautiful is set in motion towards Christmas Day.
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Even those with very limited financial resources go shopping for some needs that they can afford. Others, who have sufficient funds to do so, might shop for Christmas gifts. None of us can go shopping for grace, blessings, or inspirations. Nor do we expect to go somewhere to purchase love, faith, or hope. Rather, we can exercise these latter powers which God gives us when we make choices about whatever we might buy, and however we will make use of the material things we might acquire.
Since very few of us can afford to simply buy anything we want whenever we like, we usually have priorities in mind for purchases whenever we are shopping. These priorities affect every aspect of not only what we might procure, but also our motives. Unless we are willing to let our decisions be governed primarily by the attractiveness of items, we will rely on our spiritual resources to guide us whenever we go shopping. This does not mean that we go to a church to pray before going to stores, but we certainly are better at making decisions when we strive to consciously let our values affect the selections we make even as to which stores we will enter as well as to whatever we obtain.
Since we do not buy love but instead develop this precious gift of grace by making loving choices, any shopping we do related to the Christmas Season can be much more than a tiring burdensome task or mere fulfilment of societal expectations. When we have a clear purpose in mind that comes from love of God and love of people, selfish interests diminish, along with the energy-sapping thoughts and feelings that accompany purely self-directed impulses.
In the shops and stores we enter, more is available than we need or had in mind when we entered. Some of us adhere strictly to lists of what we intend to acquire, but openness to inspiration about whatever we ultimately buy is not at all the same as letting appetite or attractiveness in presentation or in packaging direct us. The Spirit of the one whose birth the season properly celebrates, is for us not just a source of friendly advice but also gives us gentle indications of whatever is better for us and for others, based on complete knowledge of both givers and recipients.
The best preparation for shopping, even before making any kind of list or plan of action, is to consciously pause to acknowledge the Spirit of Love within us, thereby opening our minds and hearts to receive the gifts of wisdom and insight that God wants to give to us. Then, we will be fully ready to go shopping.
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We hear a lot of singing in performances, audio recordings, video clips, and on radios and all manner of streaming devices, plus in shopping malls and other public spaces. Most of the songs we hear are done by professional entertainers or choral groups. But how much do we sing on our own or in gatherings of families and friends? Other than in church services, many of us hardly sing at all. “Caroling” at Christmas is now a rarity in most neighborhoods. Except for devotees of Karaoke, it seems that singing has gone the way of dial telephones as an ordinary part of our lives.
Rather than bemoaning the loss or deciding to join a movement akin to “Keeping Christ in Christmas,” we might reflect on those instances when we do have occasion to sing, and on how we also use our voices in modes other than talking to express and affirm our beliefs and values. We might do this more often than we think, and not just for our own sakes, but also for the good of others. Even if we have never considered ourselves as good singers, most of us are able to project our voices in more ways than in speech and with far greater capacity to convey the movements present within our hearts.
Just as we can hear but not listen, we can speak without saying anything. When we sing, call out to someone, or raise our voices to address a large group, we are usually much more intentional than when we just say whatever we are thinking. Even with an exclamation like “Oh, that’s awful,” we unconsciously use strong inflection that is more akin to singing than to a flat statement of fact. We commonly raise our voices not only when we want to warn someone of danger but also when we feel strongly about something, and so we use volume and projection to emphasize our meaning. When we notice how effectively we communicate when using these and others of our vocal capabilities, we develop our own repertoire of songs.
Many religious communities, cultural and social groups, and even military units, include singing as some part of their communal activities. For those who freely participate, no matter what the quality of their singing might be, bonds are formed that are beneficial to all. We might not be able to identify specific outcomes, but if we notice a bit of joy or a sense of unity with others who share similar values, we have personal experience of the gift of singing together.
Not all singing needs to be of songs. Sometimes, even in private, hearing our own intentional vocalizing of a feeling can be very helpful. Just as laughing out loud expresses a form of happiness, so can singing a single vowel like “O” or a phrase like “Ha” for the length of one breath, open our hearts in surprising ways.
You might want to try it sometime.