Advent Begins on December 3rd, This Year!
If you’re looking for a poetic, daily journey through Advent—steeped in both biblical truth and a passionate love for the natural world—I invite you to explore my devotional, Pilgrim God, now available on Amazon!
This daily Advent companion is $2.99 to purchase outright as an ebook, or Kindle Unlimited users can download and read for free.
I hope it blesses your Advent season!
NOTE: Dear friends, I am taking time as the seasons slow and the holidays approach to make a bit more creative bandwidth in my daily life. I am aware that I don’t want to be guilty of recycling too many of last year’s sentiments, but for the sake of sharing my thoughts with you and making things a bit simpler for me during an often-overwhelming time, revisiting past posts feels like a positive middle ground.
I truly hope you enjoy this revisited post from Thanksgiving week, last year. It’s one of my favorites.
***
the squirrel folds her tiny paws
on the bough above
and prays
over the fir cone
she will soon
drop
and here,
deeper in the woods,
gratitude is everywhere:
a table laid
for all
large and small.
down below
deep below
the sightless worms
twist
and taste
the nourishment of soil;
and all above
gather
at pond
and log
and stone
to feast
and chatter
and sing
and tell their stories
and praise their God.
a rabbit startles,
kicks its fine back feet
and vanishes,
while above me
the owl blinks
and readies herself
for another night
of hymns.
Some words are said so many times that they lose their meaning, or get close to it. I’m ashamed to say that gratitude is often one of those words. At least in my lexicon.
Autumn is a logical time to think about thankfulness. Whether you live harvest to harvest or not, traditionally autumn was a time when you gathered all of your resources like a deep breath before the plunge of winter. It is good to take stock, see the blessings, and give thanks to the source of those blessings. Without gratitude, you are in danger of pride. And there can be no pride in the cold depths of winter, only humility in the face of the wheel turning.
In the United States, the holiday of Thanksgiving is emotionally and historically complex, but I admit: I have fond memories of it from my own childhood. I love the foods that we only eat once a year, the excuse to see family and old friends, the conversations around the table. The reminder that some things change but some things stay the same.
It is common at the end of the meal for some families to go around the table and say what they are grateful for. This, also, is more complicated than it seems. Whenever this custom is exercised, I can’t always summon an answer that satisfies myself.
What can I say? I can’t list it all; we don’t have time.
But it occurs to me, as I walk around this land we live on, that thankfulness appears to be an effortless posture for the Creator-God’s creatures. They chatter and sing, they go about their business, and every movement is a testament to His grace, His generosity to them.
Thankfulness is the logical response to being known, and held, and fed every single day.
To be thankful is to be alive and aware, seeing and naming the goodness around us. When we see and taste all that we are offered and respond with a full-throated shout of thanksgiving, there is no sweeter gift.
Discussion Question
What are you grateful for, dear friends? Let’s build a full-throated shout of thanksgiving in the comment section!
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I for one am so very glad you posted this from last year...because I just 'met' you. This is delightful to read--thank you. Also, to your question: I read something today about the difference between gratitude and thanksgiving--being grateful (or having gratitude) is a way of being but being thankful is a way of doing. I liked that; one is quiet and inside whereas is the other is "I will say something out loud and acknowledge God's goodness by saying so."
Enjoying your words again fresh a year later is always lovely! 🌿 I am grateful for the healing that has occurred despite the challenges of the year. It was a hard year, but I have seen so much healing God has bestowed.