Thanksgiving, not Thanksgetting
Many years ago, I was passing through a nursing home when I ran into a group of schoolchildren filling the entrance lobby. They were about to put on a little Thanksgiving program for the residents. As you might imagine, they were all decked out in appropriate costume for the occasion — miniature Pilgrims and Native Americans carrying with them all the necessities for the feast.
Our usual Thanksgiving tableau, the one the children were about to recreate, the one we are most accustomed to when we contemplate the vision of that first Thanksgiving Day, is only half the Pilgrims’ story. That first harvest was just the beginning of their journey; for within only a matter of years, the colony changed dramatically.
Within a decade, Gov. William Bradford, in his continuing Chronicle entitled “Plymouth Plantation,” notes that “success and excess” were exacting a substantial toll:
Many were enriched, and commodities grew plentiful. And not yet in other regards this benefit turned to their hurt, and this accession of strength to their weakness … For now, as their stocks increased and the increase vendible, there was no longer any holding them together, but now they must of necessity go to their own great lots … And now no man thought he could live except he had cattle and a great deal of ground to keep them, all striving to increase their stock. By which means they were scattered.
The flip side of the Pilgrim story was beginning to demonstrate that it is only a short step from “thanking God” for being generous enough to give me something to “congratulating God” for being sensible enough to give it to a deserving person like me or to a deserving group of people. The quest for personal wealth was undermining the sense of the Pilgrims’ community — and it can surely undermine us as a Eucharistic community, the community of the Body of Christ, and the community of the Missionaries of the Precious Blood.
William Bradford continued his Chronicle until 1648; but with his discouragement deepening, he could not bring himself to record anything during his final two years overseeing the Pilgrims’ grand experiment.
As we gather with family, friends, loved ones, and perhaps even strangers, we know that wealth and success, excess and overflow can present stumbling blocks to our own ability to live the simple, generous, and compassionate faith with which we have been graced by God.
In a comic strip drawn by Bill Keane, known as the “Family Circus,” Jeffy tells his sister Dolly: “Maybe we’ll get toys from the Turkey this Thanksgiving!” To which Dolly replies, “No Jeffy, it’s Thanksgiving, not Thanksgetting!”
May we once again renew our commitment as disciples of Jesus to be a people who give thanks by means of our giving (not our getting): giving of ourselves, our goods, and our substance to those who are in need.
Benjamin Berinti, C.PP.S.