Have an Attitude of Gratitude--by Linden Malki

                                                                                                                                                             
"Thanksgiving" is a multi-faceted holiday.  The first thing that is usually mentioned is the historical instances of people getting together to give thanks to God for a successful harvest. This goes all the way back to the ancient Israelites; there were several celebrations of harvest at different times of the year. The main one is Sukkot, the "Feast of Ingathering" at the end of the agricultural year (Exodus 34:22). It also commemorates the Exodus and the care and keeping of God during a long and arduous journey. (Leviticus 23:42-43). There is also a spring festival of the wheat harvest, called Shavuot, counted as seven weeks and a day after Passover. It is also celebrated as the day on which the Torah was given to the Israelites. This translates as "Pentecost", 50 days, which is the festival being celebrated in Jerusalem on which the Spirit fell on the followers of Jesus and was the birth of the church. These are all things we should be thankful for!   Almost every culture in the world, ancient and modern, has some special recognition of thankfulness for the harvests and major turning points in their history.

The Thanksgiving holiday we celebrate in November is traditionally based on the stories of the early settlers of this country, as they survived their first years in a New World.  There is some  dissent on the historical  bases of this tradition, and there are those who object to celebrating events that led to conflicts and suffering for indigenous peoples.  Another side is that probably a majority of today's US citizens are descendants of immigrants later than the original settlers, and who have good reasons to be thankful for the freedom that they found here, compared with what was going on in their original home countries, as were my grandparents and inlaws.


I have been seeing more discussion of the importance of gratitude in our everyday lives, not just one day in the year.  Parents are being advised to teach their children to be thankful, not just in special occasions, but in their daily lives. This means that a lot of "stuff" and getting away with every whim is does not actually generate happiness.  Reasonable limitations and being appreciative and respecting others are things that we need to learn not as much by nagging as examples.  In general, God supplies what mankind needs, but not in easy ways. It takes effort to grow food, to raise animals, to build shelters, to do enough to take care of ourselves and each other. If we don't expect everything handed to us because we're so entitled, we will be able to be genuinely recognize that we aren't more important than God, and genuinely appreciate God and each other.