[SB] Thanksgiving Sabbath Blessing

[Molly Wolf]

Thanksgiving

If there were two things I could export from Canada to the United 
States, they would be (first) the loonie and toonie -- our one- and 
two-dollar coins, which are exceedingly sensible objects -- and 
(second) our date of Thanksgiving. Which is, in fact, today.

I cannot imagine a better time of year to stop and give thanks for 
Creation. This tends to be one of the loveliest times of year, with 
few exceptions. Today, it's so mild that I'm working outdoors with my 
laptop. The sky is the sort of blue that chocolate would be if 
chocolate were blue. The trees are just about to turn; we're perched 
on the cusp between summer and glory. The light glints off the lake 
surface, turning it to a sheet of rippled silver, sliced white by a 
boat's wake and dotted with sails as everyone hustles to get in one 
more afternoon on the water before bringing her inshore for the 
winter. The apples are in, and they are beauties this year; there are 
pie pumpkins piled up for sale at the farmers' market, and fresh 
cabbages and mild, sweet, white potatoes.

It's a very good time to stop, take a good deep breath, and hold 
Creation lovingly in attention. It's an especially good moment 
because it's also that time when we know that we've lost our grip on 
summer and that winter lies on the other side of Fall Mud Season, a 
few weeks away. There's nothing like the expectation of loss to make 
you truly appreciate something, and this beauty (we know) will be 
pretty much gone in about three weeks' time, succeeded by a quieter, 
thoughtful loveliness.

Which sounds gloomy and pessimistic, but it isn't. It's a statement 
of reality, and of a reality I particularly treasure. I honestly 
don't think I could live in a place that didn't have true seasons -- 
that didn't undergo the shifts and turnings that we live with, those 
of us who are a certain distance from the equator. I may bitch about 
winter, especially during its sluggish tail into Spring Mud Season, 
but I'd miss it dreadfully. I'd miss the bite and the beauty. Other 
climates doubtless have their virtues and their adherents, and that's 
fine, but without competing with them, I'd argue that my landscape's 
climate has its particular spiritual virtue. It makes Creation (and 
therefore, if you're thinking along those lines, the Creator) a 
matter of power and immediacy.

There is nothing bland about this season; it sings and it shouts. It 
sings of glory and it shouts thanks for the summer's completion and 
the incoming harvest.   Its beauty is uncompromising and 
in-your-face, full of power and vibrancy, overflowing in splendour. 
It stops you dead in your tracks, caught by a flash of gold, of God. 
That's why it's such a good time for Thanksgiving.

More than that: you know, if you live here, that the seasons swing 
around with a sameness that's deeply comforting and reminds us that 
huge, important things lie outside our lives and our control. The 
fate of nation or a church may lie in our hands, but the season's 
don't; they're the Earth's business and far beyond us, just as the 
Sun was there long, long before our primate ancestors snuffled for 
bugs and will be there long after this rock is cold, old, and done 
with us. It was good -- a deeply humbling good -- that God chose to 
spend some time dwelling with us and walking among us, bridging the 
gap between us and Godself; it is (to me at least) the deepest 
comfort that God is steadily, unchangingly, bigger than all Creation, 
vast as Creation is. It means that there's a steadiness under my 
feet, a trustworthiness.

The season reminds me of that. It reminds me that my worries are tiny 
in comparison with the greatness of God. It reminds me that, however 
often I miss it, God's love shines like the golden light under the 
trees throughout my life, and that I should stop fretting and 
remember that. It reminds me to trust in the turn of things and wait 
for the time to turn around again, as the seasons wheel.

It reminds me to stop and rest and be thankful for all the ways in 
which God's hands have been over and under me, even in Interesting 
Times. It reminds me that beauty is always there, if I can remember 
to look for it. Always.

It's a good time, Canadian Thanksgiving. And having dual citizenship, 
I get to celebrate the other one too.