Random Thanksgiving Reflections

On Thanksgiving Day, when the extended family was together, just before prayer over the evening meal, my brother-in-law, Marvin asked the family crowded in the closely packed kitchen if anyone wants to share what they are particularly thankful for. Here are some of the answers I remember:

Dad (Grandpa): I’m thankful for every one of our 31 grandchildren.

Mom (Grandma): I’m thankful for everyone that can be here and especially that Marcus can be with us. (This was very special after 15 years of him not being able to be at family gatherings.)

Linda: I’m thankful Shane is still with us. (Referring to the danger he encountered on the job several weeks ago.) I silently added Grant’s name to the list, after reading on his blog that he nearly left his imprint on the back of a minivan that turned out in front of him when he was riding his motorcycle home at highway speed. Why is it that boys will tell the whole world things like this, and not tell their mother?

Bryant (9): I’m thankful for my parents.

Kristi (11): Books.

Diana (5): My bed, my doll, the Bible. (These were conveyed by her mother, who had gotten the list that morning, after asking Diana to think about it the night before while being tucked in.)

Lois: I’m thankful that Dietrich [her seven-year-old son] is healthy. (He has recently recovered from what is thought to have been viral meningitis. He had been hospitalized.) I'm also thankful that Dorcas' surgery showed that there was no cancer in the lymph nodes. (This is the sister who has been under treatment for breast cancer since last May.)

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We’re missing Joel, who writes from Bangladesh that he is sick, and is finding that in such circumstances, he really likes being with sympathetic family members. Bangladesh is great, but not that great under these circumstances. He’s also homesick–the first time he’s ever admitted that, I think. Growing pains for all of us. . . .

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In the morning service we heard from David, our bishop, about a trip he took recently to visit members in Romania and Belgium. He emphasized that comparing our situation with some of the circumstances he encountered abroad are a real motivation for thanksgiving. He spoke of a young man he met who left the Romanian orphanage David was visiting to go to Bible school, after having lived a very turbulent life, all the while with the childhood knowledge that his father had traded him when he was small for a TV set.

David was called to the bedside of a Romanian gypsy criminal who is apparently dying like an old man at the age of 46. He wanted to be prayed for. Later, David went back to go over the story of redemption with him, from Genesis to Jesus, and the man received Christ. An old criminal friend of his, who is now a believer also, refused at first to believe that the hard man he knew could be a Christian, but now he visits him every day to encourage him in his new faith.

The home-girl who lives in Romania has been asked to teach counseling classes in a Romanian University.

In Belgium, David visited a World War I museum, built to honor the memory of the 500,000 people who died in the immediate area of Poperinge, Belgium. Seeing the devastation and loss of life that occurs in wartime underscores the blessing of living where war has seldom intruded on our soil. David reported that the museum experience was quite depressing.

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Nuggets from the afternoon conversations and events (and memories of past gatherings)--

In our family, the sayings below are affectionately called W. . . isms, in honor of the friend that unwittingly created them:

About an uncle who was struggling with heart problems: “I don’t know what I’d do if . . . dropped the bucket.”

“We’ll cross that bridge till we get there.”

“It just didn’t get the dawn on me what you were talking about till later.”

Upon hearing reports of a winter cold front coming through: “I heard it’s going to go down into the digitals.”

Reporting on fluctuations in the dairy herd: “We were milking 70, and then 65, but now it’s dropped back up to 70.”

And from nearer the edge:

With resignation, after multiple unsuccessful attempts to arrange a meal with friends: “Well, if at first you don’t conceive, try, try again.”

Another acquaintance, reporting on his wife’s surgery: “They took out the whole hysterectomy.”

Yet another jewel, from someone else, reporting on a particularly well-received performance: “They gave them a standing ovulation.”

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From my sister Carol, who is married to a pastor, came this little gem she heard that one pastor has tried on occasion when he needs to work through difficult congregational issues that involve accusations. He goes to someone who has reportedly said something particularly inflammatory and says something like this:

“I heard that you said . . . and I could hardly believe it. Is it true?”

Then he carefully observes the reaction to this straightforward approach and uses it to guide his further handling of the problem.

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Overheard among the local eight and nine-year-old snake-skinning, scat-collecting nephews, about the more mellow cousin who has just moved here: We’re going to have to toughen him up.

(They’re all fond of each other. This is one of the ways the “old-timers” are setting out to support the new kid on the block.)

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Marvin to Myron, while standing in their just-toured, nearly-completed new house: How much did that black braid around the top of the cupboards cost you?

Myron: I don’t know. (Laughter from all the women listening. Someone had observed earlier, in Myron's absence, that Myron and Lowell–my brothers–never like to talk about what they paid for anything. This was Marvin’s test. We had also laughed together about non-ethnic Mennonite Lynn Miller, financial writer, speaker, and adviser, who says that he is missing the gene that makes discussion of personal finances off-limits. After Myron heard what we’d talked about, he responded.)

Myron: Lowell doesn’t tell because he doesn’t want to. I don’t tell because I can’t remember.

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Melissa , to the small stranger she encountered in the evergreen-tunnel play space behind Marvin’s house: Who are you?

The child looked at her in surprise, and then hopped on his bike and fled without saying anything. The children had noticed signs of someone else playing in their hideout–paint applied to some of the “furniture,” strings strung about, etc.–obviously the work of a child who may have believed it was his own private sanctuary, a sentiment more easily preserved earlier when an elderly, mobility-impaired couple occupied the house on that lot.

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Two comp class research papers appeared inside the house during the night before Thanksgiving when the last students apparently crept in to deliver them, hot off the press, after we had gone to bed. I gave them permission to do so.

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From my brother Ronald I learned that his goal in milking two cows (when both are lactating, at least) is to make enough money from selling the extra milk to pay for feed for all his animals--cows, pig(s), and chickens. That way they have their own milk and egg supply, and some of their meat. Brenda bakes their bread, they grow a garden in season, so they need only infrequent trips to the grocery store to feed their family of six children.