![\"\"](\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/292\/2012\/11\/a-new-england-thanksgiving.jpg\" "\\"a-new-england-thanksgiving\\"")
<\/a>It\u2019s been interesting to think about our culture in terms of its celebration of holidays. \u00a0Here in Louisville, Halloween has become a big deal. \u00a0Several streets now feature weeks-long decoration parties, as families and residents try to outdo one another by putting up the most zombies, vampires, and cobwebs. \u00a0My wife and I, working from a decidedly different worldview\u2013one that sees no celebration in death, but rather the overcoming of it\u2013tell our kids not to look out the window.<\/p>\nMeanwhile, it\u2019s Thanksgiving week, and we\u2019re all gearing up for Black Friday. \u00a0Let\u2019s pause and think. \u00a0Is something wrong with that sentence?<\/p>\n
This is not the way I remember it. \u00a0Growing up in New England, Thanksgiving was a big deal. \u00a0My family would travel to be with extended family in Massachusetts and Maine. \u00a0We got out of school early due to the much-cherished \u201chalf day.\u201d \u00a0Then we drove and drove. \u00a0It\u2019s funny what you remember as a kid. \u00a0The tightly packed car, cold feet, brief gas station stops, incessant reading with a booklight (I read for hours and hours and hours), and then actually arriving at the destination. \u00a0Tired but excited. \u00a0Family all around. \u00a0Anticipation of being together the next day.<\/p>\n
What do we look forward to now? \u00a0Shopping. \u00a0Are you kidding me? \u00a0I have no problem with capitalism. \u00a0I don\u2019t think it\u2019s bad to buy stuff, or even to shop on Black Friday. \u00a0I don\u2019t have a guilt complex over the modern economy and my involvement in it. \u00a0My concern is this: we\u2019re at practically the sweetest moment of the year, a little cherub on the calendar, and we\u2019re more excited as a culture to go to\u00a0Best Buy than to spend time together? \u00a0The\u00a0mall<\/em>? \u00a0To fight traffic and be swept over by packs of teenie-boppers? \u00a0To deal with clerks who understandably want nothing more than to be freed from waiting on us at this very moment?<\/p>\n Again, I don\u2019t think people should feel guilty for purchasing something on Black Friday. \u00a0Clearly, that\u2019s fine. \u00a0But if the whole focus of a family in Thanksgiving Week is getting up early enough to buy stuff, and not to thank the Lord for his bountiful kindness, something seems fundamentally askew to me. \u00a0We\u2019ve missed the mark somewhere.<\/p>\n The sweetest things in life are restorative and others-centered. \u00a0Thanksgiving exemplifies this. \u00a0It is a common grace moment to remember God\u2019s special grace. \u00a0It is about, fundamentally, the Lord. \u00a0It is a day set aside for him. \u00a0It is a day\u00a0not<\/em> to integrate, to engage, if we can help it. \u00a0It is a day to rest and be with loved ones. \u00a0It should be pervaded by a sense that we deserve nothing. \u00a0God deserves everything. \u00a0And yet the mystery before us: we have so much. \u00a0We have so much more than we could ever want or think. \u00a0This is because of God and his grace shed abroad in Jesus Christ. \u00a0This is, therefore, his day.<\/p>\n The Pilgrims have fallen on hard times. \u00a0They were imperfect, to be sure. \u00a0But the modern deconstructionist impulse that critiques them and belittles them is devastatingly harmful for families and traditions and societies. \u00a0It eats and destroys and leaves nothing but irony in its place. \u00a0So do something old-fashioned: read about the Pilgrims<\/a>\u00a0(good book for families here<\/a>). \u00a0Read about how they gave thanks to God. \u00a0Celebrate them and their legacy with your family. \u00a0Don\u2019t make them sound weird or silly or awful. \u00a0Be thankful to God for them.<\/p>\n The modern deconstructionist impulse has no place for being thankful. \u00a0It believes it is owed everything by the world. \u00a0It therefore responds to a sincere \u201cThank you\u201d with a half-sullen \u201cNo problem,\u201d as if you\u2019re temporarily off the hook for having potentially inconvenienced whomever it was that helped you. \u00a0Do not, my friend, let those vile words escape your lips. \u00a0Offer back a heartfelt \u201cYou\u2019re welcome,\u201d which signifies that a social system of thankfulness and service exists. \u00a0There\u2019s an entire barrier reef of gratitude and others-centeredness that is being eaten away by modern social philosophy.<\/p>\n Don\u2019t participate in this order of ingratitude. \u00a0Be old-fashioned. \u00a0Be weird. \u00a0Be traditional. \u00a0Be subversive by being, well, unmodern. \u00a0Irony has its place. \u00a0I love irony. \u00a0But there are places it should not go. \u00a0It does well as a side dish, but not as a main course (Can you tell what\u2019s on my mind?). \u00a0It works nicely when there\u2019s an awkward moment, when someone is needlessly wounded, when there\u2019s little good that you can think to say, when an event is so funny it begs for slanted commentary. \u00a0Irony does not bless us, though, at the funeral, on the wedding day, in the midst of cherished traditions.<\/p>\n So leave irony and cynicism and consumeristic frenzy aside today and tomorrow if you can. \u00a0It may be that your work, the honorable means of living God has given you, requires you to labor. \u00a0There is no shame in that. \u00a0Neither is it wrong to buy stuff. \u00a0But if possible, set aside some time to rest and pray and enjoy and eat. \u00a0This is a day of thankfulness. \u00a0Narcissism and entitlement has no place here. \u00a0The Pilgrims were not celebrating their worthiness in making it<\/em> over here. \u00a0They were setting their hearts like a tractor beam on God and his goodness. \u00a0So should we.<\/p>\n Unironically, I close with the old King James Version, which so often has the best translation in poetic terms:<\/p>\n The LORD hath done great things for us;\u00a0whereof\u00a0we are glad<\/em>\u00a0(Psalm 126:3).<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" It\u2019s been interesting to think about our culture in terms of its celebration of holidays. \u00a0Here in Louisville, Halloween has become a big deal. \u00a0Several streets now feature weeks-long decoration parties, as families and residents try to outdo one another by putting up the most zombies, vampires, and cobwebs. \u00a0My wife and I, working from […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1217,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[95],"tags":[3180,13083,13152,3179,2805],"class_list":["post-4074","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-cultural-engagement","tag-black-friday","tag-christ","tag-god","tag-pilgrims","tag-thanksgiving"],"yoast_head":"\n