Season of Gratitude

We have entered a season of gratitude in our culture. It seems as if the time between Thanksgiving and the end of the year stirs up, even begs, for the recognition of thanks. It begins with our holiday of thankfulness and goes through the Christmas season during which gratitude is (hopefully) expressed for gifts given and time spent together. Even businesses, non-profits, and other organizations express gratitude for their customers, donors, and volunteers as the calendar year draws to a close. Even grief that may be felt this time of year can draw out gratitude for the person who is no longer here or the opportunity that was and is no longer. In the grief we can experience gratitude for what has been and for who has been a part of our lives. 

Gratitude can help reveal the reality of our interdependence, the reality that we need each other, we need creation and creation needs our (healthy) contributions to the ecosystems we are part of. None of us, as much as we may sometimes convince ourselves to the contrary, can make it alone. At some point someone was/will be caring for us, as babies or when we’re sick. At some point we have/will have the opportunity to care for others, in infancy, illness, or old age. Just as our gratitude can help us realize our interdependence, so too does our experience of interdependence offer us the opportunity for gratitude. Gratitude that we are cared for and that we get to care for others. 

Our interdependence also leads to the fact of our vulnerability. Regardless of any tough exterior (mental, emotional, spiritual, or physical) we project we cannot escape the reality of our vulnerability. Vulnerability to insult or injury. Vulnerability to loneliness and loss. We are soft creatures, we don’t have scales or shells to protect our bodies, and we have feelings that can be hurt, spirits that can be broken, and minds that will never have all the right answers. These truths reveal our vulnerability, which while a reality is not a weakness. Our vulnerability opens us up to the sharing of love, truth, and beauty, which adds such depth to our interdependence and then can stir up some of the deepest gratitude we might ever know. 

I want you all to know just how grateful I am for you. For the ways you share what you have, including your vulnerability, with one another and with me. I am grateful that God has called us together to be church, to be family, for and with each other and our wider community. I pray you will find ways to practice gratitude in your lives. I pray you will lean into the reality of our interdependence. I pray that you won’t avoid the vulnerability we all have in common, for it can be the genesis of so much goodness. 

I leave you with the chorus of a song by Hezekiah Walker, may it be a reminder and a blessing to you this holiday season.

I need you, you need me

We're all a part of God's body

Stand with me, agree with me

We're all a part of God's body

It is His will that every need be supplied

You are important to me, I need you to survive

You are important to me, I need you to survive

-Pastor Brian