Thankful For and Thankful To

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone. I hope this holiday finds you well, and that you are able to spend it with family or friends or both. Today's blog is a little essay I wanted to write about the meaning of "thanksgiving." If you don't feel like a Small Sermon today, feel free to stop reading and go enjoy your day. You deserve it!

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Thanksgiving is a special holiday. Though we are taught to be thankful all year round, having a day set aside for feeling thankful helps focus our gratitude.

Of course, it has become "Turkey Day" to some, and "Football Day" to others, but in general, with families & friends gathering together, many people do still focus on the thankfulness.

Interestingly, though, at Thanksgiving, people primarily talk about the things they are thankful FOR. This, of course, is perfectly natural. To feel thankful, people need to feel they have received something for which they can give thanks.

For me, there are too many blessings to count and list, but I would certainly start here:


I am so thankful for my family. Words cannot express it. Though I try. I am also thankful for the friends I have, especially for those who think about me frequently, providing me company when I laugh, care when I need it, and conversation - in person or over the network. I am thankful for my work, for my home, and for the beautiful world in which we live.

But I am not done with this Thanksgiving message. I want to continue on to discuss the full meaning of giving thanks.

Here is the first definition of "Thank" from from Dictionary.com:

thank

–verb (used with object)

1.to express gratitude, appreciation, or acknowledgment to: She thanked them for their hospitality.

And for good measure, the definition of "Thanks" from the same source:

thanks (θæŋks)
—pl n
1.	an expression of appreciation or gratitude or an acknowledgment of services or favours given

In both of these definitions, there is a clear message which is glossed over by many, but it is worth considering. The definitions make it clear there is someone who is thankful, and someone who is receiving the thanks, because the latter did something for the former.

So, if you are thankful, who are you thankful TO?

Yes, I am thankful to the people in my life who make my life so blessed. And if that's as far as you go in your faith, then be sure to thank the people in your life on Thanksgiving. For, just as a secular Christmas is to be more about giving than receiving, a secular Thanksgiving should be about being thankful, and to be thankful, there must be someone who deserves our thanks. With that in mind, look around at all those people who have made your life better, and express your appreciation and gratitude as you celebrate your Thanksgiving.

To carry the message a bit further, people of faith should pause to recognize that what we have been given, the materials and relationships for which we are thankful, are not merely gifts from people, but gifts from God. The original Pilgrims were not thanking one another. They were thanking God.

If you explain to a child the concept of Thanksgiving -- that we are grateful for the many things around us -- and ask them to list those things, they will often lists parts of nature. The sun, the air, the water.

If a person has no faith in a creator, then there really is no one to thank for these things. Such a person can feel lucky to have them, and they should, but they cannot truly be thankful, because they have no one to thank.

But for people who believe in a God, today is the day to thank God, as the true source for all of these blessings. Even the blessings which appear to have come from people are truly an expression of God's love towards us. And for this, thanks are appropriate, and a form of blessing in themselves.

Lord God, Creator of all, Source of Love and Blessings, on this day of Thanksgiving, we thank you, above all, for the gift of life and for the gifts we receive in life. We especially thank you for the people in our lives who show us love and kindness. For these, and for all, we are truly Thankful. Amen.

A happy and blessed Thanksgiving to you all.






[Originally posted in Snippets& Wisps on November 25, 2010.]

"Find What You're Looking For" - Wisdom from Amy Grant

 Amy Grant's most recent album, Somewhere Down the Road, contains a song called "Find What You're Looking For."

Like so many great songs, its lyrics speak to us in layers.  I think about part of the lyrics very often these days:

• There’s so much good in the worst of us 

• So much bad in the best of us 

• It never makes sense for any of us 

• To criticize the rest of us

Honestly, isn't that enough?  Couldn't we just stop there and have a lesson to ponder, to internalize, to commit to?

We demonize those who do not agree with us, but each of them is someone's child.  Someone loves each of us, or did.  And each of us loves someone, or did.  And only the psychopathic among us -- and there are very few of these, despite the cynical humor the guilty will use -- only the psychopathic try to do evil, knowing it to be evil. The rest of us try to live within a moral code.  And yet, all of us get it wrong, at least sometimes.

Yes, that lesson is plenty for one song.

But she doesn't stop there.

• We’ll just find what we’re looking for 

• We’ll find it and so much more

This is so true.  If you think you will find something in my actions, in my words, you have a tendency to find it.  We don't listen to one another.  We can, but we often don't.  And then we demonize.  Oh, and if we look, we can find mistakes people have made, and then demonize them some more, because they have made the mistake.  Yet, as the song says:

• Haven’t we all learned the best life lessons 

• By falling, and falling down hard 

• If we’re looking for somebody’s failures 

• We won’t have to look very far

 And that, too, is so true.

John 8:7:

⁷When they kept on questioning him, he straightened up and said to them, “If any one of you is without sin, let him be the first to throw a stone at her.”

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Lyrics, and background quote from Amy, taken from here.


[Originally posted in Snippets & Wisps on March 3, 2011.]

"What Does a Teacher Make?"- Video

Back from vacation, and one of the things I happened upon (from one of the blogs I follow) is this wonderful piece by Taylor Mali on "What Does a Teacher Make?"  I shared this on Facebook yesterday, but it deserves a more permanent and prominent place in my recorded thoughts.

It is a stark contrast to the recent attacks on teachers and what they are "worth" to our society.


I was at dinner a few weeks back, and the Wisconsin protests were just a few days old. A couple of my dinner partners -- who almost certainly received salaries and benefits far above those of an average teacher -- were talking about how easy teachers have it.  They -- the opinionators speaking -- would be glad to have that job, for that pay, for that "little work."

Sorry guys, you could not handle it. Honestly. And if you tried, I would be sorry for your students. Our students deserve people who want to do the work, who treat it as a vocation or a calling, not people who think it is easy work for the money.

This should not be political, folks. All but a tiny percentage of us were taught by teachers. A good teacher -- and there are millions -- does a good job, and the result is well-educated young people. A great teacher -- and there are many of these, too -- I'd venture more than one per school of most any size -- does a great job, and the result is a set of inspired students who do more than anyone would have thought possible, and who will grow up grateful to what those teachers did.

If I tried to list all of the teachers who inspired me over the years, I might give offense by leaving someone off the list -- and it would be unintentional, but understandable, because I have had so many.  But here is a list anyway.

• The elementary teacher whose name escapes me, but who introduced me to Tolkien by reading us "The Hobbit"
• Mrs. Hacker
• Mr. Gesme
• Mr. Evelsizer 
• Mr. Eittreim
• Mrs. Hein
• Ms. Olson
• Mr. Sexter
• Steve Hubbard
• Diane Scholl
• Ed Kaschins
• Weston Noble
• Leigh Jordahl
• Richard Simon Hanson
• John Bale
• Walt Will

These people, by their dedication to their students, and their skill in the art of teaching, challenged me, pushed me to do more than coast.  They taught me to question, to research, to create, to write, to revise, to analyze, to think.  They opened my eyes to subjects and ideas which lit my imagination on fire.  Would I have discovered the joy of singing choral music without Mr. Sexter?  The thrill of performing on stage without Ms. Olson?  The reasons Shakespeare's work was special without Dr. Bale?  How Economics could be interesting and understandable without Ed Kaschins?

The Paideia class taught by Dr. Scholl helped Sherry and me as we grew to know one another better just before our marriage. The class on Christian Humanism as taught by Dr. Jordahl helped clarify for me the kind of faith which still makes most sense to my heart and head -- and he simply loved having a married couple in his class.

And while it is clear my mind was primed for mathematics & the sciences, many of the teachers above found ways to encourage me to rise above the expectations of the ordinary syllabus, to learn things I could learn, and to help others learn them when I could.  I wanted to be a teacher because of Mrs. Hacker and my dad.  I learned to love and appreciate math and science because of them and the rest of the math and science teachers on that list, and others I omitted while trying to finish this in less than an evening.

To evaluate these people by how much money they make, or to think you can put a price on what their jobs are worth?  It can't be done.  These people, and the work they have done, are priceless.


[Originally posted in Snippets & Wisps March 21, 2011.]