more than watchmen for the morning

Thankfulness

Here is my annual essay on what I’m thankful for. The blog will be pretty quiet for the next few days as I’ll be in Germany without a laptop. 

I am thankful for coffee. It really is the best part of waking up.  I’m no good in this world before I have had a cup. Sometimes this draws judgement from those around me, but there will always be persecution and I am willing to withstand it for the sake of just the scent of an inky beverage that causes neurons to move from a slow trot to a gallop through these cerebral pathways. 

I am thankful that I can learn, though the process is often agonizing.  The beautiful thing about stories, poems, and the entirety of the world’s literature is that each entry has the ability to teach us something about ourselves and to change us, if only inch by glacial inch, into the men and women we were formed from dust to become. There’s a theory that the afterlife will have work for us to do.  Even in the garden of Eden there were tasks to be done, and therefore a perfected and redeemed humanity will still be at work. I hope that my task is to read through the collection of written thought. I figure I’ll have enough time to learn all the languages, read and reread and discuss the tough thoughts that I’m not smart enough to instantly comprehend, and then read Harry Potter 41928472938712 more times. And then I’ll start all over again so I can take it all in again on a deeper level. The thought of it makes my eyes relax into peace. 

I’m thankful that God gave us gifts and made us unique. I look around the Canvas team and I look at the students that make up our ministry and I am amazed at the varied depth and nuance of each person’s skills.  The world is literally humming due to to the drawn out talents of those who become alive when they practice them.  For me, God gave me the ability to fake laugh. I can also give a good back rub. I hope you’ll take a second and remember what you do well and then rest for a moment or two in the miracle of how good that feels. 

I am blessed beyond what any rational person could measure. I have friends who love me and have volunteered to put up with my nonsense. I am poor by the standards of most people I know, but I am rich compared to world standards. I don’t have a lot of money, but I have my daily bread along with an ability to travel on a shoestring and to read books. That’s not too bad. I think that one day I will have a wife that I love and kids that smile with the brightness of a noonday sun. This treasure is so good that I don’t mind being thankful for it in advance. 

I am thankful for Benjamin Braden, the little giver of joy in Selly Oak. The other day he was looking at me and made the sound for my name, which we want to be “Tay-Tay”, and he did it completely unsolicited. It was the beginning of a perfect Friday. 

I’m thankful that I am here. I sometimes I forget how much effort it took just to arrive on this island.  I sometimes forget that so much had to happen for me to get to do this job.  Yesterday, I worked from 9:30am to 11:15pm with nothing but a 30 minute break for a dinner to myself, and it was nothing but honest and wonderful work. This might also explain my love affair with coffee. 

I am thankful for my family. My mother, who is sharp and loving and enjoys life. My aunt, who came along aside me and understood me when I was young and said, “Of this family, you are the most like me” and I felt like I belonged. For my grandmother, who is everything.  I haven’t seen her in a year and the thought of it makes me ache. Thank you, Father God, for her. Thank you, Father God, for my grandfather’s life and all that he was to me. For my various cousins and extended family who patched together my early life’s community. 

I am thankful for those who support Canvas and give of themselves.  For those that give their love and their time, for those that sacrifice and have learned loyalty.  

I’m thankful for paradigm shifts. For moments of understanding. For the sudden clearing of the fog that we call the epiphany.  I’m thankful for seasons and for life as well as death, because we know that life is only found worthy because of the loss, and there is a value and scarcity to this whole business of being alive that charges it all.  We don’t have time to waste around being afraid or timid. If we are going to love then we should do it today. If we are going to change then we should do it today.  If we are going to brush our teeth, then we should do that at least twice a day.  There is an urgency to all of this that makes it somewhat fun and often tragic. I think the only way to be fully present in all of it is to embrace it.  I’m thankful that you and I have a purpose here, and that our greatest ambition is to simply love the person sitting next to us. If we did then the world would glimmer with peace and we could all go fishing for the rest of the afternoon. 

I’ll be back to writing next Monday. 

Happy Thanksgiving.