Fake It Till You Make It
Someone told me that there would be 25 at their family Thanksgiving Day. I replied, "Wow, that’s a lot of subjects to be avoided." We both laughed.
Like all national-cultural events, the origins of Thanksgiving Day are complex and mostly shrouded in folk law. So, let me change tack and move away from the annual holiday to the source and purpose of thanksgiving in our lives.
Jesus asked:
can any of you by worrying add a single hour to your span of life? I know people for whom the impulse to give thanks is spontaneous. It’s the first thing they do upon waking and the last thing before sleeping and in between the day is full of numerous surprises which trigger their deep sense of gratitude. I admire and envy such persons because I am not one of them.
My habitual frame of mind tends towards the worry side of the line. So, it’s important for me to take Jesus question to heart because I, like many, delude myself that worrying is doing something about the source of the worry. But worrying does nothing to change anything other than to keep me imprisoned in a part of my mind that makes me anxious.
The spirit of thanksgiving is a spiritual practice that many of us have to work at. Because of this, I have numerous opportunities to become very aware of the shift in my experience that happens when I connect with the source of gratitude for the amazing blessings of my life. It’s like flicking a switch in my mind that opens my heart and renews my courage to TRUST goodness rather than become a prisoner to my worries and fears.
If you are a spontaneous thanks-giver then rejoice in this orientation. If you are more of a deliberate thanks-giver then remember one of the cardinal rules of the spiritual life is
fake it till you make it. Believe me, before you know it, you’ll experience your heart opening to becoming a channel through which gratitude flows through all the impulses, no longer resisted, of generous living.
Happy Thanksgiving Day!
This Sunday is Advent Sunday, the first Sunday in a new Church Year. Advent is the most moving of the Church seasons It has some of the best hymns. It's a season of preparation with a sense of rising expectation of good things to come. Advent Sunday is one of the two Sundays in the year when we begin our worship with a solemn recitation of the Great Litany. See you then!
Mark+
