gratefulness is to worship as like/dislike of yams is to thanksgiving dinner. sort of.

So it's the week of Thanksgiving already!

Our church family held its annual Thanksgiving Gathering last Saturday. There were 35 or so of us that shared a meal and our thanks to God for His blessings. Though it was about the same number as the year before, the faces were dramatically different, and it was amazing to see the new ones and recognize God doing His thing among us.

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I like the Thanksgiving holiday. There are lots of obvious reasons to like the ways in which our culture celebrates Thanksgiving, of course: family, food, football, fetc.

But I like Thanksgiving because, in its way, it gets right to the point of who or what a person worships.

See, in order for someone to be thankful, they have to have received something. And when a person receives something, they receive it from someone or something. And thus, the act of giving thanks: one person recognizing that they received something from someone else.

So on Thanksgiving, the people who are able to push past the cranberry sauce and lopsided Lions/Cowboys scores take a moment to consider all they have received, and then they give thanks to whomever they believe they have received it from. For followers of Jesus, this is the moment in which we acknowledge God as the Giver of all things.

But for many, this moment of reflection does not lead to an acknowledgment of God. For some, it is an exercise in self-congratulation. Or a chance to consider how lucky one was to have gotten a certain job, or to have been born into a certain family, or whatever. (In truth, it must be said that many who pay lip service to the idea of God providing all things fall into this category.)

And for some, it is an exercise in confusion: one might experience feelings of gratitude, and realize the ways in which they have been given gifts, but genuinely not know who to thank. Sometimes this feels like the default position of our culture, in which one is encouraged on Thanksgiving to simply "be thankful."

But it doesn't make sense to simply be thankful, any more than it makes sense to simply pay or simply congratulate. You have to thank someone or something -- and the real-time answer to that question reveals plenty about you, about who has the position of provider/authority in your life, about who or what you really worship.

I would encourage you to think long and hard about it. And to make sure that your reality matches up with the words coming out of your mouth.

For all the things I have been given, I wish to say with my lips and with my life:

Thank You, God.

catching up: yaro & co.

Man, it's been too long.

So a couple weeks ago, our church hosted a harvest party. We had a bonfire, a hayride for the kids, some other games, and a lot of awesome food.

One of the highlights for Kristy and myself was our guests for the evening's events. Yaro and Melissa and their kids are our backdoor neighbors, and our kids play together in the neighborhood (at least, they do during warmer weather). Yaro and I also have a common love for the game of basketball, and a common lack of time/place to do it.

It was also fun to talk to them about our area and how much it's grown, since they've been here their whole lives. All in all, it was a lot of fun connecting with them.