Giving Thanks

It’s Sunday morning.  Folks in Annapolis are scurrying in the office prepping for the 9am service.  Or, they are sharing stories from Thanksgiving.  Or, they are taking a few moments to themselves before the morning begins.

I am home on Long Island at my parents’ house.  On Tuesday night Owen the dog, and I stayed at my brother and sister-in-law’s in Delaware; on Wednesday morning I picked up my friend Stephanie from Union in Philly; by Thursday I had laughed and shared meals with college friends, seminary friends, church friends, and family.

Thinking to these last few days, my chest truly aches with gratitude.  This was going to be a different Thanksgiving – One that distracted me from my upcoming MFC appointment (in 6 days); one that distracted me from the absence of our usual Thanksgiving guests.  And at points this happened.  But, and for me this is how Grace works, where I had only been expecting distractions or my anxiety veiled or pushed down … I was given love and laughter and tears of gratitude and also of remembrance.   I was given family, my given and chosen, together.

I have been on two different emotional paths lately.  Ministry is isolating and lonely – they prep us for this throughout seminary but nothing can truly explain it.  No one can relay how important it is to reach out to friends and colleagues.  No one can truly explain what an individual path this can be sometimes.  So I have been in that camp half the time lately – the feeling isolated and lonely camp.

And then there is past week that I’ve already mentioned; but in particular last night.  I had dinner with Austin’s family and some of his friends.  How do I explain that I want to so say, I feel lucky?  I feel blessed, unnecessarily chosen, and simply lucky — to be a part of his family in the ways that I am right now.  I never knew what a personality his younger brothers has; I never knew how similar it is to Austin’s.  I am meeting his close friends from work and camp.  For as different as each seems at first meeting, they each illustrate Austin’s life; they are each strong good people with wonderful senses of humor, who care deeply about their friends and this life – just as he was.  I feel lucky that I am a part of this circle, this litany of his life, that in many ways, I am getting a second chance at reconnecting with him beyond our few minutes at coffee hour during the holidays.  I feel lucky to not only get to further discover his given and chosen family, but to be a part of it.

I guess that’s the other camp — the dumfounded overwhelmed feeling of being so blessed my chest aches with gratitude camp.

And that’s a pretty good camp to find respite in from the isolated and lonely one.

So in the next week, as I prepare for my Ministerial Fellowship Committee interview, I do not want to be distracted or have my emotions veiled for any reason.  I want to be grateful.  I want to take each person’s spirit, who I have been blessed to be loved by, with me into that room and speak with gratitude for my life and this process.

If you are one of them, thank you.

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