Happy Holy Conversations and Holy Eating!
As we approach the holiday season, we do so knowing that some are still metaphorically standing by the waters of Babylon, grieved by the many losses over the last 18 months. Our prayers continue for those families, businesses, and communities. We pray that they will truly experience the promise that weeping endures for the night, but joy comes in the morning.
Photo by Brooke Lark
Additionally, our celebration of the holidays comes with the reality that Thanksgiving Day, in its original purpose, is yet another event that we must confess is an outcome of nuanced history. As I build relationships with our Native siblings, I am more aware that the story of the first pilgrims' arrival to Plymouth and the alliance established with the Wampanoag Indians is a partial narrative. In his book This Land Is Their Land: The Wampanoag Indians, Plymouth Colony, and the Troubled History of Thanksgiving, David Silverman demystifies the actual events of 1621. Today, Americans continue to learn that history's inaccuracies cannot be righted unless the impact of colonial land expansion, the spread of disease, and the exploitation of resources are fully told.
May I suggest an alternative celebration—Happy Holy Conversations and Holy Eating. Eating together is a spiritual act. When people come together and stories are told, Christ sits among us. A meal prepared in love is gift enough. Seeing relatives and friends restores the soul. Holidays are times to give thanks and remember. Our spiritual practice of thankfulness puts life in perspective; all of life is a gift. Deuteronomy 8:7-18 instructed the Israelites to offer thanksgiving to God and resist the tendency to forget the Lord when our burdens subside. Very few of us are living without trouble these days, yet the warning is understandable. Below are reminders from the text:
Do not forget the Lord
Keep the Commandments
When you reach the place of comfort and financial wealth and your wishes are fulfilled, do not forget who has blessed you with these things. Keep front of mind three aspects of personal and economic growth. Recognize that God's favor adds value to the lives of believers. Here, the saying of the self-made man and woman is challenged. Here, individuals are cautioned not to be seduced by worldly beliefs of self-reliance and "pulling oneself up by one's own bootstraps." Maintain a healthy balance in understanding the truth between self-determination, generational wealth, and blessings.
Remain humble be cautious not to put trust in false securities. There is a downside to unbridled greed and power. Resist the allure of consumerism and its claim to invulnerability.
Why such emphasis on remembering God? The answer is obvious, spiritual amnesia. The people from generation to generation would forget God, assume personal interdependence, and engage in idolatry—as it was then, so it is now. The ritual of holy conversations and holy eating is the right time to share stories. Tell stories that not only acknowledge triumphs but also the lean years where resiliency, grit, perseverance, and faith carried you through seen and unseen danger. Be thankful. Give praise to God. Consider paying it forward to others from your abundance.
May you experience an extraordinary measure of grace this holiday season.
Happy Holy Conversations and Holy Eating.
Rev. SanDawna Gaulman Ashley