This is not my first attempt to write a “Thanksgiving” message. You all expect me to offer one and I understand offering a word of gratitude in this season to be a responsibility of my ministry, part of my job. But I have had a hard time staying in the space of gratitude.  

One of my first efforts centered on the Native American understanding of this holiday as a Day of Mourning. I used the poetry of Joy Harjo to bring the Trail of Tears into the present in the caging of children on our border. I wrote of the need for a new story that does not paper over the violence and the exclusion that is a through line in our history. That effort failed to get to gratitude. 

I am so grateful to Cassandra, who lifted up the problematic Pilgrim story and the shameful, violent treatment of Indigenous People in her Staying Connected piece on Monday. One of the blessings of our strong staff at First Unitarian is that our ministry is heard in multiple voices. 

The extended Sinkford family clan will gather tomorrow, a Thanksgiving tradition of reunion that is decades old. This year, needless to say, the gathering will be on Zoom and I look forward to signing on.  

I am grateful for that virtual reunion. Truly. But there is also a real sense of loss in not being able to be present physically. This year, I will “see” my children and grandchildren on a small rectangular screen. We will give thanks for the many blessings in all of our lives. But we will also miss the hugs and kisses, the shoulders to lean on or perhaps to cry on. 

And though there have not been deaths to the virus in my close personal circles, there have been other deaths that have touched me deeply. And with hundreds of thousands of deaths in our nation, the minister in me knows that we are overdue for a time of grieving.  

If grief and loss are close to you this season you are not alone. 

Most of us are choosing safety this Thanksgiving. That choice leaves us with a sense of loss that mingles with the gratitude we also feel and are encouraged to name.  

Many who will read these words, most perhaps, are blessed with comfort that is considerable. Despite our blessings, there is a greater sense of the fragility of life that is present, at least for me. A heightened appreciation of how easily life can be lost. A greater sense of life’s precariousness and its preciousness.  

My giving of thanks is genuine, heart-felt…but grief and loss are not far distant in my spirit. 

My devotional life struggles to prevent merely moving from one to the other, from thanks to grief and back. To give an obvious example: the good news of vaccines on the way easily gives way to concerns about their distribution and worry about the world we will have to rebuild post-Covid.  

Because in addition to the grief and loss, there is also anxiety about what the future will hold. 

The challenge of this whole holiday season may well be to find ways to hold all of this in our hearts and still allow room enough for the emergence of hope. 

This season is going to require the stretching of the capacity of our hearts. 

Here is a poem that I have kept on my desk for weeks now, not willing to file it, knowing, somehow, that its message was one I needed to take in. 

From the final chapter of Ruth King’s Mindful of Race. 

“Don’t be afraid of getting your heart broken. 

Do your work. Say your prayers. Then do your best. 

Grieve. 

Rest. 

Keep hate at bay. 

And join with others for refuge. 

Don’t get too far ahead of now. 

This moment is enough to digest. 

Sit. Breathe. Open. 

Don’t be a stranger to moments of freedom that may be flirting with you. 

Allow racial distress to teach you how to be more human. 

Sit in the heat of it until your heart is both warmed and informed. 

Then make a conscious choice to be a light. 

May you find ways to remember your blessings and give thanks. May your heart and my heart find new capacity to hold what must be held. 

And may the Spirit of Life, however you know it in your life, hold you in the hollow of its hand. 

Happy Thanksgiving. 

Bill