by Freida Marie Crump
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Greetin’s from the Ridge.
It was a genuine jaw-dropper. A commentator on National Public Radio sadly announced this week, "It may be hard for most Americans to find reasons to be thankful this Thanksgiving." Then he gave the litany of problems our nation is facing this season – wars, a struggling economy, a nation divided on so many issues, healthcare costs.
Wish he’d have known my grandma. One Thanksgiving she put a small, boiled sweet potato on each of our plates along with a chicken leg. "That’s it," she said. "That was our Thanksgiving. 1931. And we were darned glad to get it. We gnawed that chicken leg to the bone then chewed the skin off our potato. Just about the best meal I ever had." She said he mother had dug the sweet potatoes herself but that she’d had to borrow the chicken.
Give thanks in all things. That was her motto. Stitch up your religion into whatever shapes you please, this attitude of livelong thanks served her well and generations like hers. Grandma didn’t give thanks in spite of the tough times. She thanked God because of them.
Hank Webber is one of our local casualties of the tough economy. In management for over twenty years, he’s now found himself with a wife, three kids and no job. Last week he told me, "Freida, there’s a blessing here. My kids are learning how to be frugal. Our whole family is looking at life in a whole new way." His daughter has decided to write a poem for each family member this Christmas, simply smiling at her classmates as they speak of filling their drawers with yet another useless electronic marvel. "I’m so blessed, Freida," he told me. "For Thanksgiving we’re getting the gift of wisdom."
A recent television documentary was entitled "Our Loss of Innocence." The program detailed how since September 11 of 2001 we had become a more cautious and frightened nation. I’ve always allowed as how knowledge, no matter how sorely won, makes you better. And I give thanks that we now know a bit of what it’s like to be a citizen of Kabul, of Tel Aviv, and of Baghdad. Give thanks in all things.
We’ve come to doubt whether or not our nation can continue to be policeman and savior to the world. We doubt the motives of those who would send our youth to war. But we can give thanks that every soldier who’ll be eating turkey or jerky overseas this Thanksgiving truly believes that he or she is there to serve and perhaps to die. Our little world can’t be in awful shape as long as one man or woman is willing to risk life to help another. In all things we can give thanks.
I gaze in amazement and horror as the first Christmas-buying hoopla now crowds in ahead of Halloween, and I fear for a generation whose notion of poverty means having a cell phone that only plays 15 tunes, whose idea of suffering means an interrupted Internet connection, and whose concept of misery is a long line at Hardees when they’ve run out of curly fries. Can we learn to give thanks in all things when we’ve known only excess and gluttony?
I look upon the character hard taught by sweet potatoes on a Thanksgiving platter and wonder where the moral fiber in the next generation will be learned. Can we learn to give thanks in all things when we’ve seldom been denied a single thing?
There’ll be no candidate elected with the campaign slogan of "Let’s cut back and be frugal." We won’t find the answers in our leaders. The synonym for a politician who advocates restraint and simple living is "Loser."
So, as with all things American, the best answer must come from us – the simple desire to give thanks in all things. Sweet potato blessings. My little clan will sit down to Thanksgiving dinner and talk of dance recitals, football teams, the price of gasoline, and whether blown-in insulation keeps you warmer than aluminum siding. Somewhere between the appetizer and the salad we’ll cross the 1800 calories that can be afforded by the average citizen of Bangladesh. We’ll feel guilty, we’ll ask each other, "Why do we always do this to ourselves?" and then if someone at the table is smart enough, she’ll quote the writer of Proverbs: "Lord give me neither poverty nor wealth, but enough."
Give me neither poverty nor wealth, but enough. And in all things, give thanks.
You ever in Coonridge, stop by. We may not answer the door but you’ll enjoy the trip.