November is a month dominated by the holiday of Thanksgiving. (In truth, I should concede that November is overrun by the encroachment of the holiday of Christmas, thanks to merchants anxious to get shoppers in the Yuletide mood. However, that’s the subject of a different essay.) The holiday of Thanksgiving is a call for a shift in focus. It reminds us to stop our regular activities long enough to sit down together, share a meal, and offer thanks for the bounties of this life. Whether the Thanksgiving feast is shared after church in the social hall or with friends and family on November 24, it is an opportunity to show gratitude to God and to one another for the blessings we daily receive. It is a time to keep things in perspective. No matter how many negatives there are in your life right now, there is still something positive for which you can give thanks.
When Thanksgiving is done well, it is a time for us to “think differently” about life. Let me offer an example. As we sit down to a Thanksgiving meal, we are mindful of those who are hungry at that very moment. We are reminded that we should be good stewards of God’s harvest, sharing with others in need, and refraining from wasting the food in our own households. Perhaps in our Thanksgiving prayer, we ask God’s intervention on behalf of those who are hungry, such as the people without food in Somalia. But the gospel would have us go one step farther and “think differently” about the whole issue of hunger in a world of plenty.
Thomas Keneally recently wrote a book called Three Famines that speaks bluntly about the horrors of international famine. Typically we have believed that famines are the result of “acts of God,” drought, storms, inhospitable weather conditions ruining crops before harvest. But Amartya Sen (Nobel-winning economist) has argued this poignant fact: “No famine has ever taken place in the history of the world in a functioning democracy.” A book review of Keneally’s work insists that famine is not about a failure to produce food, but historically has been caused by a failure to distribute food. Food is available, but those in power have refused to share or provide for those in need. And the current conditions in Somalia certainly bear out this troubling thesis.
Thinking differently around food and meals (especially big meals like Thanksgiving) means that we practice our faith whenever we shop in a grocery store and sit down for sustenance at the table. Every item we eat came from somewhere; do our choices in those items foster God’s realm or weaken God’s children? Are we eating justly or just eating?
Thinking differently around food reminds us to savor the incredible variety available to grace our dinner tables: the tang of Fall apples, the taste of yoghurt or fruit preserves or warm soup or dark chocolate. To slow down and chew, taste, and consider the wonder of food as we eat it is to think differently.
We’ll talk more about this at our church. But for this month, remember to notice what you eat. Consider how it came to you (and perhaps how it is being withheld from others). Pray that our just and loving God will work with us, through us, and in spite of us to allow “daily bread” to grace everyone’s table. And always, give thanks.