The Abundance of Lack

Happy Thanksgiving! The year is winding down as we head into the holiday season. This will be the four hundred and second Thanksgiving our country has celebrated. That is a lot of turkey and dressing!

As you should have learned in school, the first Thanksgiving was in November 1621. The 53 surviving Mayflower Pilgrims decided to celebrate their first harvest in the new world with a three-day celebration. Their guests were around 90 Native American Wampanoag people.

Then, in October 1863, President Lincoln declared the last Thursday in November as a national holiday. Thanks, Abe!

The initial idea was to give thanks for an abundant harvest. The abundance of lack. The practice of gratitude.

It is so easy to start thinking about what we do not have in a material sense. Emotions intensify over the void of a loved one that has passed on. A broken relationship you long to mend.

I found myself missing my oldest sister this week. She died in August 2020. I miss her laugh, her sarcasm, the rapport we had. We called ourselves Lucy and Ethel after an episode with a twelve-foot Christmas tree. Truth is, I miss her every day, but there are times that the missing increases.

I suppose I could choose to dwell on what I do not have or the people I miss, or all the things that I wish could be different. It’s okay to acknowledge the pain I feel.

But here’s the rub. I have far more than I lack. What about you?

While I miss my sister, brother, and parents, my middle sister is home for the first time in nine years to celebrate the day with me. 

I lived through horrible marital experiences, but I am now married to my best friend.

Several friends died way too young, but I am surrounded by the most wonderful friends that enrich my life daily. I only need to hit a button on my cell, and they are there.

We lost our Lulu earlier this year, but we still have two fur babies that think I hung the moon – well at least one does, the other sits on the roof UNDER the moon.

I have had cancer three times and spent more than one holiday in the hospital, but in my wellness visit this week I got a clean bill!

And that my friends is the key to everything, isn’t it? It all comes down to a choice of attitude. I can focus on the crap that I have lived through or the people that are no longer here, OR I can say thank you, Lord, I am still here!

Friends, you are still here too. In this present moment, we are abundant by the very breath we draw in and blow out of our lungs.

Eat some turkey and say, thank you, Lord for my abundance of lack.