Drive by our place on Worthington Road, and you will see the cartoon on our sign consisting of a pilgrim with his blunderbuss looking in one direction and a turkey hot footing it in the opposite direction. It’s the month of Thanksgiving! Yet much like our turkey friend, there are moments when giving thanks won’t make the top of today’s list. It might be immediate issues, like: you’re dealing with an icy road. Or longer term, like your teenager giving you no end of grief because you’re standing in their way of having fun by doing, or ingesting something that you know will be ultimately harmful to them. Or … well, you get the picture. Every day we have things that press us to be unthankful.
Some might agree with a philosopher who once complained that, “Life is nasty, short and brutish.” But why would this philosopher complain about life being short if it’s so nasty and brutish? Can’t he at least be thankful his bad life is short? Or maybe he’s complaining about it being a short life because he loves pain and agony. In that case, shouldn’t he at least be thankful for getting what he loves even if it isn’t for as long as he desires? Let’s face it. In day to day living, if we wait to be thankful until we get exactly what we want or expect, we’ll never be thankful.
Even the turkey running for his life on our sign can be thankful that the pilgrim is looking in the wrong direction. Right in the middle of his stress he would profit by singing (quietly, of course) the old song: “Count your blessings, name them one by one.” Let’s see, besides the blessing of the hunter looking in the wrong direction, he can be thankful he’s in good enough condition to run like the wind. And another blessing is his feather coloring makes great camo once he’s in the brush. It doesn’t mean the turkey should ignore the direness of his situation, it means that instead of wasting energy and emotion cursing the problem, he can be thankful to be alive and attempting the solution. Being thankful at such a time might seem weird, but I’m sure the turkey will agree it’s a personal blessing to be alive and running, as opposed to being the center piece on the dinner table.
Yes, trouble comes to visit all of us, and in those times being thankful seems impossible. It’s at this point where some of us appreciate the third line of that old song, “Count your many blessings, and see what the Lord has done.” You see, we have an eternal confidence despite the current circumstances in life. If we just look at circumstances we run in hopelessness, if we look up we run in a real and eternal hope, it makes for a complete Thanksgiving and that’s better than what the most positive turkey can ever claim.
Garry Eddy
Yacolt
