ArcaMax

I am still flooded and inspired by the God winks you are sending to me, and I thank you from the bottom of my winking heart. Even so, I am happy to take a break from God winks to send along my annual Thanksgiving blessings and my suggestions for things, animals and people for which, and for whom, we should give thanks, but do not.

Most of us have a custom of going around the Thanksgiving table and urging each guest to give thanks for something. Both Tommy and I felt that the list of thanks around too many tables – though heartfelt – had become formulaic and a bit trite. Yes, we are all thankful for family and food. Yes, we are all thankful for health and home. Yes, we are all thankful for freedom and faith. These big-ticket items are the low hanging fruit of the Thanksgiving world. What Tommy and I wanted to do with our Thanksgiving column was to encourage all of us to focus on the little often unnoticed gifts which God has strewn across the path of our lives – things like (from previous columns) squirrels, red leaves, repair people for power lines, sanitary workers, and more. Send me your little weird additions to the thanksgiving table we all share in this column.

Part of the art of expert thanksgiving is humility. The fundamental irreducible point of thanksgiving is to give thanks for what we already have, not to ask for something more. In my most often quoted saying, the Christian mystic Meister Eckhardt wrote, “If the only prayer you ever say is ‘Thank you’ it will be enough.”

That is eloquent and true but this year I must break this sacred rule. I pray that long before next Thanksgiving all the hostages in Gaza will be released. I pray that the suffering people of Ukraine will know peace and freedom. I pray that the suffering people of Gaza and Lebanon may know peace. And I pray that all those who are starving in famines across Africa will know food and clean water. And I pray that those who will spend Thanksgiving poor and hungry in America will soon experience even a small touch of grace.

There is so much suffering in the world right now. I know it seems selfish to give thanks for small or large items in our mountain of abundance, but perhaps it is the very daily regimen of giving thanks for what we have that will tutor us. Perhaps daily thankfulness for what we have been given will help us to increase our sensitivity for those made in the image of God like each and every one of us who have not yet been given enough.

Amen

This year I give thanks for:

– Teenage kids who teach their grandparents how to use a computer. Once there were teenagers who taught grandparents how to use a plow. Things never change.

– Rescue animals who have not yet been adopted but greet each person who visits their cages as a new and bright hope for a warm bed and a snuggle.

– Hospice workers. Of all the jobs we hire people to do, by far the most difficult and most holy is the job of sitting with our dying loved ones as they die, and showing them with a touch, a song, or a cup of tea that they are not alone in their last moments in life.

– Customer service workers. Some customers are patient and grateful for help in sorting out the complex world of online commerce. However, some customers with complaints have never heard the word “no” and they are furious when their ideal resolution cannot be provided. Human beings have to listen to both types all day long every day and many of them return home after a trying day to inadequate housing in third world countries. Their patience is heroic.

– Election workers. In the election just passed, millions of us voted and even if we sent in our ballots via mail or the internet some human beings helped transform the idea of free elections into the actual mechanism of a free election. I voted in a place with people who helped me exercise my right in a way that worked. All of them were cheerful and helpful. Of course, this could have been because I smile a lot, and I look like I need help. However, they all reminded me that the idea of freedom does not work unless it is translated by a huge bureaucracy into me being alone in a booth with a choice.

Over my many years of voting I have noticed that some polling places had doughnuts for the workers, and some did not. I mainly trust the places with doughnuts.

Happy Thanksgiving!

(Send ALL QUESTIONS AND COMMENTS to The God Squad via email at godsquadquestion@aol.com. Rabbi Gellman is the author of several books, including “Religion for Dummies,” co-written with Fr. Tom Hartman. Also, the new God Squad podcast is now available.)

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