Father Tim Lemlin
"Pop, what are you talking about?" the son screams.
"We can't stand the sight of each other any longer," the old man says. "We're sick of each other, and I'm sick of talking about this, so you call your sister in Chicago and tell her."
He then hangs up. Frantic, the son calls his sister, who explodes on the phone. "Like heck they're getting divorced," she shouts, "I'll take care of this."
She calls Phoenix immediately, and screams at the old man, "You are NOT getting divorced. Don't do a single thing until I get there. I'm calling Tommy back, and we'll both be in Phoenix tomorrow. Until then, don't do a thing, DO YOU HEAR ME?"
The old man hangs up his phone and turns to his wife. "Okay," he says, "they're both coming for Thanksgiving and paying for their own fares."
It seems that when we as a people struggle we move from being thankful for things to being thankful. When we have all that we need, and more than what we need, it seems that thankfulness is external. We thank God and others for what we have, that which belongs to us. When we are in need it seems that our thankfulness is internal. We thank God and others for who we are, that which is shared with us.
President Abraham Lincoln, in the midst of the Civil War, established Thanksgiving Day as a formal holiday. He wasn't trying to make people forget, even for a day, the horror of people killing people. He wasn't trying to run away from the enormous deprivation that so many people were experiencing. He was simply expressing his experience of God using everything for good. Nothing is lost.
As imperfect people, we can be thankful for this.
