BY DAVID BUMBAUGH, PROFESSOR OF MINISTRY, MEADVILLE LOMBARD THEOLOGICAL SCHOOL, CHICAGO, ILLINOIS
When I consider the Thanksgiving season,
I am embarrassed to realize how very small, trivial, insignificant
are the things, which come to my mind.
I know I should give thanks for the big things,
and in some intellectual sense, I do.
I am grateful for love and hope and nourishment,
for challenge and ambition and opportunity,
for the history out of which we have come
and the tradition in which we stand
and the occasional glimpse of what we shall be,
for all the people whose lives are woven into mine
and who, all unknowing, make my life possible.
For all of this I am truly grateful.
But there are moments
when I am startled into thanksgiving—
a gratitude deeper than words
that shakes me to my very core.
Most often, it is occasioned
by something small, modest, common, and ordinary.
In the morning
I stand in the shower,
the splash of warm water spilling over me,
cleansing me and renewing me.
I am suddenly aware
of the curving feel of a fresh cake of soap
nestled in my hand
and an unexpected sense of being blessed
washes over my being.
Sitting quietly, reading,
I am gradually aware
of the steady sound of the clock on the wall
ticking away the unvarying moments of the day and the night,
knitting together past and present and future.
And I am grateful to the wise person
who, creating battery-powered clocks,
chose not to eliminate the steady, redundant
tick-tock sound of time's passage.
What wisdom and restraint!
I walk into the living room and there
on the freshly vacuumed carpet,
one bright red leaf
tracked in from the outdoors,
which will not be tamed and caged and kept in its place—
an unbidden reminder that despite centuries of culture
we are still rooted in the natural world,
still enveloped in its cycles,
still caught in its endless patterns of turning and returning.
I smile at the small white asters
which cluster around the tree trunks
in the front lawn,
and the mushrooms which spring up after rain,
reminding me of the persistent patterns
which underlie and resist our efforts at structure and control.
Outside my window
a flock of small brown birds
makes a home in the tall, unsightly bush,
which borders the drive.
Summer and winter they are there
chattering and fluttering and sweeping in and out.
I would like to cut down that bush,
or trim it back severely,
and surely my neighbors would applaud the effort.
But where would the birds go?
Summer and winter it is their home.
They flutter by the window,
reminding me I am steward, not owner,
that power does not confer right,
that the arena of duty and obligation
is large and inescapable.
I am stirred by the young and the vulnerable—
the gray kitten playing with a bright red pod
until, weary, it seeks out its friend and surrogate mother,
a small, taffy-colored dog.
Lying securely in the curve of the dog's body
the kitten sleeps while the dog keeps watch.
And the children,
everywhere the children:
in shopping malls
and on the streets,
resting trustfully in their parent's arms,
lying quietly in strollers,
trotting along beside adults,
eyes wide and bright,
welcoming the world in all its confusion and complexity.
I watch them
and remember the child I was and still am,
and I try to see the world as they see it,
new and bright and full of hope.
And in their presence I am renewed.
My thanksgiving is a modest thing:
rooted in the common and the ordinary.
My thanksgiving is a modest thing:
rooted in the here and now.
My thanksgiving is a modest thing:
rooted in a faith that in every moment
is beauty and glory and blessing enough
to astound God almighty and strike a horde of angels dumb.
