Celebrating the laughter in our hearts

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Well, it’s that week once again. It is the time for the Buckeyes to somehow perform their magic one more time with TTUN. Oh, and there’s one more day this week when we all seem to get excited, isn’t there? We call it Thanksgiving. It is that often-overlooked, and insignificant day when families and friends get together, overeat, and play the home version of “Survivor,” where we compete to see who can outplay and outlast everybody else both at the dinner table and in front of the television screen.

In recent years, my bride has taken to a hobby. It is called running. She enjoys the exhilaration of exerting herself for three, or six, or even nine miles at a shot. This Thanksgiving morning – early – she will be doing the same thing. But seriously, what does the Thanksgiving holiday really signify? Is it just another day to run a lot, or to eat a lot and yell at the football game on TV a lot?

I do not mean to be simplistic, but isn’t Thanksgiving a time to be … er … thankful? So please, let me ask the simplistic question: For what this year are you thankful?

David Brooks, a columnist for the New York Times, recently wrote a column entitled, “The Structure of Gratitude.” In that column he described what he called the true spirit of thanksgiving: “I’m sometimes grumpier when I stay at a nice hotel. I have certain expectations about the service that’s going to be provided. I get impatient if I have to crawl around looking for a power outlet, if the shower controls are unfathomable, if the place considers itself too fancy to put a coffee machine in each room. I’m sometimes happier at a budget motel, where my expectations are lower, and where a functioning iron is a bonus and the waffle maker in the breakfast area is a treat. This little phenomenon shows how powerfully expectations structure our moods and emotions, none more so than the beautiful emotion of gratitude. Gratitude happens when some kindness exceeds expectations, when it is undeserved. Gratitude is a sort of laughter of the heart that comes about after some surprising kindness.”

We all want that “laughter of the heart,” don’t we? But my question is how do we get it? Is it totally dependent upon what someone else does for us – some random act of surprising kindness that we cannot plan for nor anticipate when it will occur? Or do we ourselves have control over that attitude of gratitude that can permeate our hearts and souls each and every day of our lives, not just on one holiday every year?

I read recently about a one-day conference held every year that is dedicated to celebrating stuff that is boring. In fact, it is called the Boring Conference. Its founder and sponsor declares that this is a “one-day celebration of the mundane, the ordinary, the obvious, and the overlooked.” During this conference, held yearly since 2010, speakers have addressed the following topics: sneezing, toast, the sounds made by vending machines, the Shipping Forecast, barcodes, yellow lines, assorted arcane features of the Yamaha PSR-175 Portatune keyboard, inkjet printers of 1999, ice cream van chimes, how to cook elaborate meals with the equipment found in hotel bedrooms, and similarities between 198 of the world’s national anthems. Previous highlights include a talk about electric hand dryers by “a man so fascinated by them that he installed a Dyson Airblade in his house,” and a speaker who “rollerbladed around the hall while reading from a book about the relative weights and densities of different kinds of metal.”

Every year since 2010, the conference has been a sell-out hit because it has a serious aim: to take “subjects often considered trivial and pointless, but when examined more closely reveal themselves to be deeply fascinating.”

Thanksgiving can be that way, can it not? It may sound boring to talk about being thankful, but the Bible calls us to a whole lifestyle of finding joy in and giving thanks for the ordinary and often overlooked things and people and places that are actually gifts from our creative and wonder-filled God.

Repeatedly in the Scriptures, both Old and New testaments, we are called to a lifestyle of thanksgiving: “Enter his gates with thanksgiving, and his courts with praise.” (Psalm 100:4), “…give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you” (1 Thessalonians 5:18), “…giving thanks always and for everything to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ” (Ephesians 5:20). Notice, if you will, the prepositions in these verses – “in.” “for,” “with.” If I understand these verses correctly, thanksgiving is to be a pretty constant activity in our lives, no matter what sorts of joys or challenges the events of our lives may bring.

So, no matter who wins or loses the football game, no matter whether it is pumpkin pie or pecan or banana cream, and no matter where you are spending your Thanksgiving Day, be thankful, and celebrate the laughter in your heart.

God bless…

Chuck Tabor is a religion columnist for The Times-Gazette. He also serves as pastor of Port William UMC.

Chuck Tabor
http://aimmedianetwork.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/22/2016/12/web1_Tabor-Chuck-new-mug.jpgChuck Tabor

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