Happy Thanksgiving! Thursday's Reflection

One of the books I am reading currently is a delightful collection of essays by Shauna Niequist called Bittersweet, Thoughts on Change, Grace, and Learning. Niequist is far younger than I am and is definitely wiser than I was at her age. When she writes about childbirth, her children, her marriage, friendships, especially with other women, and all the tough growing up women still need to do in the mid-decades, I flash back to my years as a much younger adult. 

Reading these essays I hope will enable me to open my heart more fully to the younger women in my life--to their stresses and challenges, their choices and decisions.

But she speaks to my older self, too. 

Today is a day when we expand the dining room table. We get out the one tablecloth big enough for that stretched table and hope we have enough silverware for everyone we've invited. We grocery shopped more than once and still forgot to buy whipping cream for the pumpkin pie. We chop and sauté and stir and baste. 

Or at least some of us do. My husband and I are going to my sister's house for Thanksgiving dinner, and my only assignment is mincemeat pie, my 95 year-old father's favorite. I used my mother's recipe for piecrust with lard as an ingredient. How bad can that be for us just once a year! 

We will have a lovely day, and I am grateful for the hospitality she and her husband offer, but this morning when I read Niequist's essay, "Feeding and Being Fed," I thought about how much I love to open our doors to friends and family.

        There's something about seeing your house filled
        with people you love, something about feeding 
        people, especially on days when it seems like you
        can't make a dent in any of the larger, more theoretical
        challenges in life.

We aren't hosting Thanksgiving, but later this weekend we will have a group of 10 here for a potluck supper and then on Monday another group of 10 for dessert. My writing group will come on Tuesday and then on the following Friday another gathering of family from a distance, including a new baby. I remember similar times, and I share Niequist's sentiments:

           I stayed up late, long after they all left, letting the 
           candles burn down, trying to remember each moment,
           exactly how the table looked and how each bite tasted.
           I felt nourished on an impossibly deep level, thankful
           and full and proud and humbled all in the same moment.
           It felt to me like we'd been part of something important,
           something larger than a meal, like we'd managed to
           thaw the ice just for an evening, like we had traversed 
           bridges normally impassable. 

I know not all family gatherings, especially at holiday times, are easy. I know sometimes they are fraught with hurt or unaddressed feelings. I know our differences can seem wider and more painful if walking in the front door feels like a command performance, but I also know love happens. Niequist says,

            Sometimes the most spiritual things we do are the
            most physical, the most tactile. Feeding people is
            one of those things, whether we're helping to feed
            hungry people, or feeding the hunger in each one 
            of us on these dark and heavy winter nights.

And so I wish you a Happy Thanksgiving, a Thanksgiving in which love is reflected in the candle light at your table. May you count your blessings and resolve to offer blessings to those most in need of them. 

An Invitation
When did your open door bring you surprise blessings? I would love to know.