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Give Thanks, Give Yourself
This Thanksgiving you may not be able to end the war in Iraq, bring about reconciliation among the world’s religions or solve ethnic strife, but you can definitely get yourself down to the local homeless shelter and feed somebody. The best way to give thanks on Thanksgiving is to give of yourself.
Volunteering helps cure the blues that come around the holidays. Yes, at feeding programs it’s important to cook the food, serve the food and help clean up, but it is vital to sit down at the table with those whose lives have brought them to this hard time and place and share yourself. Last year at a local shelter in Chicago’s south loop, I was sure that one of the men at the table didn’t see the rest of us. He was clearly enjoying himself and ate heartily, but he called us by different names, “Anna” and “Cousin Johnny.” He was seeing, or perhaps even imagining, other feasts on other days when he wasn’t wearing three coats and someone else’s shoes. For a while, he was full and warm and thankful and among family, however imaginary.
Simply being present as one human being sharing food with another puts the world in perspective. The crazy strife we live with day in and day out is still there, but you did something real. For a little while, you relieved someone’s loneliness and even grief. Their thanks for that are profound and then you realize the thanks are all on your side. You got to help somebody.
Another benefit to volunteering around the holidays is that you get out of the house yourself. Maybe Aunt Fanny and Great Aunt Helen are in your kitchen going three rounds again this year about whether to put whole cranberries in the cranberry sauce or mash and strain them. You can leave them to it and spend a couple of hours downtown at the shelter. When you come back, you’ll find that no matter how the cranberry sauce turned out, the kids won’t eat it because they’ve decided it’s weird. And you’ll smile and bring in the rolls and it won’t bother you so much. There’s so much real pain in the world, weird cranberry sauce is not the worst problem.
You give thanks.
By
Susan Brooks Thistlethwaite
|
November 19, 2007; 5:19 PM ET
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Posted by: Andrea | November 21, 2007 10:49 AM
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Rev. Thistlethwaite,
If only every family's problems were no greater than weird cranberry sauce. I took the day off work yesterday and decided go around and visit some family members one-on-one. I should have brought a notebook. They don't talk to each other, they talk to me then tell me not to say anything. Oh, so-and-so's not raising her kids right, so-and-so's drinking has really become a problem, etc. If they'd just talk to each other about these issues, out of love, things wouldn't be quite as uncomfortable as I'm anticipating they will be tomorrow. We all love each other, but tomorrow we have to pretend we like each other as well. I have one family member picked out to get alone and have a heart-to-heart with, I'm hoping the rest of my family does too. We're skipping my husband's family dinner altogether this year after being the subject of criticism. I guess the concept of family love and acceptance has gone out the window. I'll take weird cranberry sauce over this.
On another note, I wish more people would get into volunteering. During the holidays it's especially hard for those families who cannot provide dinner for Thanksgiving, or gifts for Christmas. I used to volunteer at a community center in a city near where I grew up. Every Christmas, we'd have a pancake breakfast with Santa for kids and their families. We'd also set up a "Santa's workshop" for the kids to go in and pick up some gifts for their families. Everything would cost about $.10 and we'd all have pockets full of dimes for them. The only thing left in that shop after all the kids had gone through was the table full of toys. They would spend their dimes on things like bubble bath for their mom, a small tool set for their dad, and the only toys they'd pick up were for their siblings if they had them. These were the most thoughtful and selfless kids I'd ever met. Who wouldn't want to help them? It really puts one's own family problems in perspective to see how these families, who have close to nothing, interact with each other.