The house was as crowded as it had ever been for Thanksgiving. This was the year when nearly everyone came home. The extended family pushed and crowded and stepped over each other as the dance of the holiday alternately sang and groaned its way to the Festival Meal of Thanks. As usual the full range of human emotions was present. Some were happy; others were sad; still others teetered and simmered on the very edge of outburst.
Mom seemed to be spending even more time than necessary in the kitchen. It was as if she had retreated to the sanctuary of her own space. Peter & Paul were out with the kids playing ball, taking hikes, and generally trying to be responsive to the needs for increased inside space. Sister-home-from-college had the blues herself as she was experiencing a difficult stage of her generally improving relationship with fiancé John. They were in the process of a discussion over graduate schools and whose needs were to take first place. Sister had been granted a Fellowship; John, so far, had received two rejections and but one acceptance (at the same school where Sis had been awarded a Fellowship).
It had been a fall full-of-tension in the neighborhood. Every election year Dad and his best friend, next-door neighbor Bill, had a test of friendship owing to their differing political opinions and persuasions. While they had always recovered and had gotten over it in the past, there was some serious question as to whether they would be enabled to come thru this year. This year… the argument had escalated to a precipitous stage. This year the main argument was a most negative one. It raged over which political party was putting up the worst candidate. Neither man felt that a positive vote was even possible; each seemed to catch a sickening dis-ease from the very negativity of the campaign itself. Mom and her next-door neighbor, Sally, had been struggling to keep the peace and to maintain the traditions of best-friend neighbor families. They felt like they were losing.
Sister-home-from-college had arrived late. She and John had decided on separate family visits in order that they might have some time to think things over. As Sis arrived home, she could feel a tension far beyond the usual holiday swirl. In the most positive column, brothers Peter & Paul for once were not competing with each other for Dad’s attention; instead, they were helping to keep the kids from underfoot so that Dad could sit glumly in his chair or pace in the garage by himself.
The kitchen was full of steam. Mom was in there working with Aunt Margaret/Margaret (PEG/PEG as the kids all called her) cutting onions. Peg/Peg signaled Sister that she would be vacating the kitchen for a while so Sis could spend some time with mom. Mom’s eyes again were filled with tears. Only this year there was something in her tears that went well beyond the usual holiday exhaustion. Sister started it out.
“Mom, it looks to me like you are crying. Is it those onions you are peeling…or is it something else? Would you like me to work on them for a bit so that you can sit down and tell me what is going on?”
“Oh, Sis,” trickled mom wiping her eyes on the corner of her apron, “things are NOT going at all well here in the neighborhood. Your Father and Bill are having a new and very serious argument this year. I’m afraid it has gone well beyond the usual “election blues’ that they manage to catch every four years. The very substance of their friendship is in danger. Did you see the new fence that dad put up?”
“I saw it mom. But I felt such anger and sadness around here that I haven’t brought it up as yet. I was waiting for the right moment. I can’t believe that dad would put a fence. Why did he do it?
“At that same moment Aunt Peg/Peg, having left the kitchen so mom and Sis could talk, had decided to drift into the garage so that Dad and Peter could talk. She clucked her tongue to herself in thinking…”Boy this family really is having a lot of problems this year.”
Peter said to Dad, “O.K. Dad, tell me what’s going on please.”
Dad said, “I’m so mad I could just spit. If I were younger, I’d go over and punch Bill right in the nose. I’m just sick and tired of him always coming over here and borrowing my tools. He’s been helping himself now for twenty some years and he never can seem to say ‘Thank You’ … or even ask before he takes. I’m sick of raking his darn leaves from our yard each year. For twenty years I’ve been raking his leaves as they always get blown over into our yard.
“But Dad, doesn’t Bill, always come over & help you rake our yard?”
“Yes, he does. BUT HE ALWAYS USES OUR RAKE! Why that man hasn’t bought a rake in twenty years. Know what I told him? We were leaning on the rakes talking about the campaign and religion ‘n he says to me, “Do you really know the difference between Heaven and Hell? I sez, “Certainly!” You know it very well your own self. HEAVEN is like some Fall’s. The leaves are light and fluffy and they are all in your neighbor’s yard. What few are in your yard are most easy to pick up. HELL is just like this year. It’s an Election Year! Your neighbor doesn’t know how to vote!’ All the leaves, your’s and your neighbors! are in your yard.
The leaves are sticky, heavy, and wet, … just like your neighbor!” Well, he got mad! He bit his cigar right in half, he threw down MY rake, and he stomps off back home where he hasn’t been seen from since. The very next Saturday I put up the fence … got a good deal on it too … and that’s that!”
Peter said, “But Dad, you’ve been best friends now for some twenty years. You two were the ‘shepherds’ of the whole neighborhood, the founding fathers of the lane, and the first houses on the street some twenty years ago. What is this Berlin, or something? How can you put up a fence? How about all those things … all of those times … when Bill has bailed you out over the past twenty years?”
Just then Aunt Margaret/Margaret, Peg/Peg, drifted back into the room bearing a jar of home-made pickles – her own ‘special brand’ which she brought every festival day and which no one ever really liked – and asked Dad to pop the top as her arthritis was bothering her.
Simultaneously, the crew bustled in from outside still horsing around and no one at all noticed the redness in Dad’s face except for Peter who was still sitting on the hassock at Dad’s feet.
“Wash up everyone!” came the cry from the kitchen, “Dinner in 10 minutes. Dad, it’s time to carve the turkey.” Dad got up slowly and silently and went into the kitchen. Sis and Peter and Paul shared silent shrugs with each other. It looked like it was going to be a tough meal.
When the family gathered around the table there was a field storm of questions. Each plate had but 5 grains of colored Indian Corn in its center. “What’s this? Is this all we get to eat?” asked Niece Nancy. “Come on now,” growled Dad, “What’s this all about this year? I’m hungry!”
Sister-home-from-college by now had been granted all the graces at family gatherings. She was still deeply and seriously involved in her church work and her graces – and the conversations which they sparked – had become a part of the family holiday stories. Sis said, “Let me explain the Indian Corn before we say our grace.”
*”In early New England at Thanksgiving Time it was customary to place five grains of corn on every plate. This served as a reminder of those stern days in the very first winter when the food of the Pilgrims was so depleted that only five grains of corn was rationed to each individual at a time. The Pilgrims wanted their children to remember the sacrifices, the sufferings, and the hardships of those early times. They did not want their descendants to forget that on the day on which their rations were reduced to five grains of corn, only seven healthy colonists remained to nurse the sick … that nearly half their number lay in that windswept graveyard on the hill.”
“LET US PRAY,” she said: “Dear God hear our special prayers this Thanksgiving Day. We thank you for all that we have in our family and in our friends and neighbors. We thank you for all that we so often take for granted. We ask that you make us mindful of those things for which we need to give thanks. Make us NOT like ‘the nine’ who failed to give thanks for their healing; rather, make us ALL like the one who re-turned to Jesus in gratitude. Help us dear Lord, to reach beyond the narrowness of ourselves so that we may lift up those things for which we have forgotten to give thanks. Let us each spend a moment of silence to think of something — or someone – to give thanks for.” ……..
Dad twitched in his chair at that very moment. Peter & Paul exchanged winks. Mom blew her nose; the young-uns stirred and snuck an olive. Aunt Peg/Peg saw her onions getting cold.
Peter started it off. “I give thanks for this family and for this neighborhood which has always been a sanctuary for me throughout my life.”
Paul said: “I give thanks for the steadiness of our family life and for this neighborhood. I had to go away for a while to appreciate it. But now each time I come home I find that I grow a little more in understanding of what it means to be a family.
Mom said, “I just give thanks for all of the life and love we share. May our moments of unhappiness pass away and may our shepherds come home. I give thanks for those times of healing which Sister is leading us toward.”
Everyone gave thanks until it came to Dad who said: “I would like to give my thanks at the end of the meal. Please pass me those onions which are getting cold…and while you’re at it, pass me those pickles too (Aunt Margaret/Margaret Peg/Peg beamed in delight!)
And the dance of the mealtime began. People talked and passed the food. The kids got excited and talked with their mouths full. Onions, pickles, Aunt Margaret’s dressing, mashed potatoes weaved their way around the table. People argued over the merits of white and dark meat. The children all had Peter help them make swimming pools with their potatoes and gravy. The ballgames were discussed. No one mentioned politics at all. Why people even asked Sister – right out loud and in front of everyone! – how things were going with John.
Everyone ate so much that it was decided to wait a bit for dessert.
Dad said, “I think that I owe this family a prayer. While we have been eating, and talking, and celebrating as a family, I have been thinking of those five grains of Indian Corn. The symbol of the five grains is important to me. There are five members of our immediate family, and each grain offers a reminder of how much you all mean to me. (You too, cousins, and grandparents, and Frank & Peg/Peg.)
BUT next time I would hope, SIS, that you would set that extra plate you used last year, and, on that plate, you would put MORE than five grains of corn. I would like the extra plate and the extra corn to help me be reminded of our friends and neighbors; and on those years when we are not able to be all together, then the grains can remind us of those we love but who are not with us. I am ready for my prayer of thanks now.
“Dear Lord, we thank you for this day and for all that you have given to us. I thank you for family and friends. Thank you for Sister and for her gentle lessons of the Indian corn and the peace it helps to bring. Dear Lord, please make me a better shepherd in this home and neighborhood. For I remember the words of Jeremiah: “I will set shepherds over them who will care for them, and they will fear no more, nor be dismayed, neither shall any be missing.” Thank you, Lord, for my two sons, their strong backs, and for their willingness this afternoon to help me take down the fence which is separating me from my friends. Dear Lord, be with us all and hear our thanks….”
For a moment it was quiet. Peter & Paul winked at each other.
Sis just kept her head bowed.
Mom burst into tears saying, “Oh Dad!”
For once, Thank God!, Uncle Frank said nothing at all.
Dad’s eyes grew moist as well, but he broke the impasse by throwing down his napkin and saying, “I think I’ll just wait on this dessert and go over and see how Bill’s indigestion is doing.”
“It was just one of those days, you know ….”
We thank you Lord! Amen.
((* adapted from the rlb’s Thanksgiving Sermon Series “Sister Home From College”))