Thanksgiving

Today is Thanksgiving and Facebook has been abuzz with Thanksgiving greetings.  I put a 'like' on every one I saw and posted one of my own.  I apologize if I missed your greeting.  I rate my Facebook savvy as 'moderate,' knowing that it is better than some and will never be as good as others. 

Our family has much to be thankful for this year.  New home.  New job.  New friends.  Not that there was anything wrong with any of the old ones, but relocating 1200 miles this year was accompanied by changes that were not a part of last year's move of 2 miles. 

Our Thanksgiving tradition over the past few years was to host dinner at our home.  Robin's parents came.  Our children and grandchildren who lived in town came.  A friend I worked with whose family lived a ways away came and last year we also invited several others who were temporarily living in Rochester and unable to join their families.

This year things are different.  Very different!  There have been three Thanksgiving dinners for us to attend!  Fortunately they have all been on different days.  First was a meal hosted by the Jicarilla Apache Nation and open to the community.  The community center was packed and I understand that they served 600 meals.

This past Monday we were invited to the home of someone we have gotten to know and we spent the evening with his family.  At the beginning of the evening we only knew our host and it was a delight to make a few new friends and to sit and listen as an elder told a few stories of life in Dulce many years ago. 

And today we had one more Thanksgiving dinner, hosted by an extended family with a several members in our congregation.  Just before we sat down to eat I counted a bit more than 40 people present and a few more came in while we were eating.  Everyone brought something for the meal and as best I could tell everyone took some leftovers home. 

Since the dinner was at the church gym I went over a few hours later to lock up the building and found a large pan of sweet potatoes sitting at the edge of the parking lot.  There are a fair number of loose dogs on the reservation and after talking with Robin I decided to leave them where they were.  Tomorrow I can check to see if the dogs and the ravens, who are also quite common here, found the abundance of sweet potatoes to their liking.

Life is good, as they say, and I seem to have the full range of good things to be thankful for.  There are also things that trouble me and things that trouble the congregation I serve.  I'm not going to delve into those things here.  The fact is that at the root of my thankful heart there is something that doesn't change, no matter what the circumstances of my life may be at the moment.  And that is the unfailing and eternal hold of Jesus Christ on my life.

May the presence of His love be the cause of your thankfulness, today and every day.