Eat, Remember, Laugh, and Sigh
In a big sense, that lays out the essence of what many of will be doing during this American holiday. Many of us will gather with family (ours will be just 4 for Thursday) and others will not. One of the things I have been sensitive to for many years of meeting a few Native Americans, some of whom became friends, is that some of our celebration days are days of sadness for them.
There was a time when some sensitive people had the idea of denying those historical remembering days. While I have been one to not overplay some of those days, I have not been too much in favor of forgetting history.
I think we need to face these mixed heritage days (joy for some and sorrow for others) with an eye for learning and then remembering the fuller stories. Yet, isn’t that what most of our celebration days have become? War-based rememberance days like Veteran’s Day or Memorial Day are days to honor those living who served while also remembering with sighs those who served and died. And if we want to remember those days more fully we must stop and mourn the loss to other nations in terms of people and infrastructure because of those wars. Too much needless loss, needs to be remembered but then should spur us to live so it will not happen any longer.
Anyway, that wasn’t where I really started to go: thanksgiving. I found a good article written by a Keetoowah Cherokee Indian teacher and pastor on the site for Sojourners magazine.
Rev. Randy Woodley on God’s Politics
According to Barack Obama’s new book, white guilt has already run its course, so my sense now is to move quickly past how bad it really is – and it really is bad – and on to suggesting a way for us to heal.
There does come a point where the remembering and the honoring and listening and sharing need to be turned toward the purpose of healing. This is especially true when the contexts are broken relationships and cultural injustice. Healing does not come through overplaying the stories or forgetting them, healing comes by living through them to a new reality of relationship and society. A new culture of respect and commitment to be trusting and trustworthy.
The best point in Randy’s article (go read it if you haven’t yet) is the importance of humor in healing. A humor that can both gently and sharply lead us all to take ourselves less seriously and to find common ground in our humanness.
So, eat, laugh, remember, and sigh this Thanksgiving. It is good for the soul.
November 23rd, 2006 at 10:20 am
God is Good! Happy Thanksgiving!