--Oscar Wilde
In my dining room hangs a print of what may be the most iconic depiction of an American Thanksgiving ever created, Norman Rockwell’s illustration “Freedom from Want.” It first appeared on the cover of the Saturday Evening Post magazine in March of 1943. It was inspired by a 1941 speech by President Franklin Roosevelt, in which he envisioned four freedoms the world needed fight for, in that time of war. Freedom of speech, freedom of worship, freedom from fear and freedom from want.
The painting is almost too familiar. It embodies all the cliches and all the tropes and yes even, all the hopes, we Americans often invest in the third Thursday of November and the feast thereof, which this year falls on the 25th. The United States government used the painting to sell war bonds and so the image was reproduced some 2.5 million times, hence its almost unconscious presence in our personal and collective memories.
It portrays an impossibly happy and perfect holiday.
Eleven folks gather around a “just so” dining room table, all of them smiling in anticipation of the perfectly cooked turkey, straight out of the oven, balanced on a tray in the arms of a white-haired New England Yankee grandmother. Behind her is the sturdy husband all prepped and ready to carve the bird. All the water glasses are filled perfectly and the jellied cranberry sauce glistens in perfection on the table right next to the most delectable stalks of celery I think I’ve ever seen.
It’s a mythical take on Thanksgiving, too perfect in its portrayal of human life. Everyone is home and around the table, no one left out or left behind or missing. Plenty of food, enough for everyone and then some. And all those folks getting along, just so happy to be with one another. What is there not be grateful for that day? So much to thank God for!
This is the myth of Thanksgiving. It’s supposed to be a perfect day, right? But then there is the reality of thanksgiving beyond a one-dimensional image frozen in time.
Sometimes, it is comical, the ways that Turkey Day can go south and so fast. Like the year my sister dropped a bowl of hot mashed potatoes on the floor and covered herself and the kitchen in gobs of the white stuff. The many years I’ve wrestled my best friend Barb in the kitchen for turkey control, me opening the oven every three minutes to see the bird, she shooing me away so that the fowl might actually be able to roast. Burnt rolls. Spilt eggnog. Political debates amongst ideologically opposed family members.
Sometimes Thanksgiving is tender, melancholy, a mix of the profound and our human longing for community. Like the years I’ve looked around the table and realized not just who was there with us but also who was not there. The loved ones we’d lost since last Thanksgiving. My Dad, my Uncle Franny, my grandfather, my close friend Manley, they who died and were and still are so missed. The year a friend of a friend joined us for dinner in the midst of battling stage four breast cancer. The time a beloved cousin was absent because she was in a rehab center far away from home, for her addictions.
The interesting thing is that those years of Thanksgiving, the challenging ones, were no less celebratory for me than the Thanksgiving years when almost everything seemed to go right. There’s a lesson there for all of us about gratitude, heartfelt gratitude, giving thanks, and not just on the days when the sun is out, and the sky is blue, and the gravy has nary a lump. No.
Can we also give thanks on the days when the rain comes in sheets and a loved one just got a scary health diagnosis and the finances are tight and oh my goodness, I can’t imagine Thanksgiving without the one I so loved. And yes, the gravy is all lumpy too.
One of the wisest of folks in my faith, Saint Paul, wrote that it is our call to, “Give thanks in all circumstances.” He doesn’t say give thanks for all circumstances. Who among us would thank God for a world war or folks who struggle to feed their families or cancer or family discord? Those things do not happen because God cruelly plays cosmic dice or as a test or to teach us something, as if the Creator of the universe would intentionally hurt us. That’s not the power greater than myself that I know.
Sometimes things are hard and sad, and good people go through tough times, and Thanksgivings are not always the cheeriest of days because this is the nature of life. Life is a package deal, all wrapped together, and we cannot tease out the parts that break our hearts or scare us just as we would not want to only experience the parts of life that are so amazing, miraculous, and beautiful. It’s all of one thing.
True gratitude, heartfelt gratitude, courageous gratitude sees some good, some redemption, some gift in all things. Gratitude is able to weep but also to laugh and is always ready to say “Thank you…” no matter what the circumstances. Gratitude is found everywhere, if only we have the wisdom and the humility to look for it.
I still love my Rockwell print. But now I never mistake it for the beautiful and broken and very human day we’ll all celebrate this week, thanksgiving. It is our day to give thanks, no matter what. Thank you, God.
May we all enjoy the most grateful of Thanksgivings.
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