Thanksgiving (see Gloating)

Today being Thanksgiving here in Canada, there has been more discussion about our abundance of material things, and how we ought to thank God for giving them to us.

As well obvious, there is lack of almost nothing here. Many families are celebrating their good fortune with dinners of unusual size. Even the homeless in the city are well-fed. Though things aren’t exactly as they ought to be, saying so is being overly picky.

At the same time, I read an article yesterday, describing people in Haiti that are so poor as to literally eat baked mud, for lack of anything else.

However, I would propose that those with excess have been given the greater problem, for they, empowered with wealth, cannot let things be, as it is the epitome of injustice to withhold another’s necessity. There is something disturbing about eating huge dinners while other people eat mud.

And sometimes I fear thankfulness is even a celebration of inequality. Perhaps an analogy would help my explanation:

There were two men in a certain city, the one rich and the other poor. The rich man had very many flocks and herds, but the poor man had nothing but one little ewe lamb, which he had bought. He brought it up; it grew up with him and his children. It ate his same food and drink from his cup, and it would lie in his arms, as it was like a daughter to him.

The rich man, living next door, held a great feast one day. There was foodstuffs of all kinds, and the meat of choice was lamb. Seven lambs he slaughtered for he and his friends to eat with relish. Now seven lambs were too many for the banqueters; there was a great quantity of meat left over. The rich man fed it to his dogs.

The poor man, insulted greatly by the rich man’s sense of worth, looked on this with overwhelming disgust. The rich man and his friends conversed about how glad they were not to be a poor like him.

It troubles me that we put emphasis on being thankful alone. It seems like another way of us asserting how much more blessed we are than those Haitians, and therefore how much more favoured in God’s eyes we must be. We eat fancy meals to convince ourselves we have excess wealth to make ourselves feel assured of our worth. We thank God in prayer that he spared us from being like the rest of the world, being his chosen fortunate ones.

To show then that we don’t have this lack of humility, I believe that it is very necessary to live in a generous way. Living generously then means that I am not the prime beneficiary of my work – I work to better the lives of others, and afterward use what I need to maintain myself. With such an understanding of resources, I am not morally trapped by having much, because it is not primarily for me.