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The
Bishop's Journal
October 2001
A Different Kind of Thanksgiving
As I write these words, just a few days after the tragedy of September 11, I suspect that this year's Thanksgiving observances will be particularly poignant for many of us. In the best of times, Thanksgiving provides us with an opportunity to do some serious reflection on our priorities in life. How much more will this be true as we toss and turn within the wake of the collective uncertainty that has been so violently introduced into our lives by these events.
Several months ago I attended a conference where the speaker described contemporary life as being like a department store where gremlins have broken in during the night and switched all the price tags around! The tags from the cheap stuff have been put onto the most expensive stuff and vice versa.
It's a sentiment that I hear echoed in a lot of the comments I've heard from friends and colleagues over the past several days. Many have expressed a need to re-order their spiritual priorities. Many are realizing that we've been investing huge amounts in things that have marginal value and very little in those things which carry ultimate value.
More of us are feeling the need to re-order our relational priorities. As the names of faceless victims scroll endlessly across the bottom of the television screen, we are forced to reflect upon the state of the relationships we have with our own spouses, parents, children and colleagues.
Some of us are feeling the need to re-order our economic priorities. We're asking new questions about how resources are shared within the human family and beginning to wonder "who owns who" in this strange relationship we have with our possessions and our "stuff."
Are these easy questions to deal with? Not by a longshot!
It means acknowledging that we have been guilty of kneeling before false altars - that we need to make some changes and re-set some of our priorities and expectations. It means re-thinking some of our assumptions about how the world is both ordered, and mis-ordered. It means taking time to slow down; to live more prayerfully and reflectively.
It means taking the risk of talking to other people about these sorts of issues and questions. It means seeking opportunities to connect with people whose cultural background is different than our own. It means affirming our abiding belief in God's continued faithfulness and gracious intention toward the entire world; even in the midst of great human tragedy - and perhaps especially then.
Unexpected benefits can come as tragic circumstances force us to do some hard re-thinking about our values and priorities. My Thanksgiving prayer for you, this year, is the same as that which I carry for myself. That we might be granted the grace to draw some measure of good from these terrible days and experience them, not only as being painful and destructive, but also as carrying the potential to be strangely restorative.
Thanksgiving is for all times; the painful as well as the joyous. May we know it to be so!
The Rev. Michael J. Pryse,
Bishop
