This Thanksgiving was very low key in our house, which made it a little odd, but full of thanks and love nonetheless. That day I had time to reflect upon Thanksgiving and it occurred to me that we, as a culture, treat Thanksgiving Day as Opposite Day. We set aside a national day of giving thanks, and then what do we do to practice this thankfulness?
We get together with people we love rather than people who are disenfranchised. Is this thankfulness? Well, yes, but perhaps not in it's entirety.
Then, we cook a ton of food and eat it. We eat all day until we are full. We call that appetizers. Then, we sit down to a Thanksgiving feast and stuff more food into our already full bellies. Once the meal is over, we take some time to lie on the couch and "make a little room" for dessert, which we then indulge in freely. Is this thankfulness? No, I believe this is called gluttony.
Then, that evening and the next day we (not my family in particular, but culturally speaking "we") crowd into stores for Black Friday. We push and shove and heap things into our arms. We buy and buy and buy. Is this thankfulness? Nope, I'm pretty sure this is hoarding.
What a strange way for us to spend our day of thankfulness. As far as I can see we don't do anything that exhibits thankfulness other than offering thanks before one of our meals that day. Our Thanksgiving doesn't actually look like giving thanks does it?
All of this has led me to think that it might be impossible to truly give thanks by taking instead of giving.
No comments:
Post a Comment