Last year I invented a new holiday to celebrate, replacing the colonial concept of giving thanks for my family’s presence on this continent. (https://reidvanderburgh.com/2018/11/22/reclaiming-thankfulness/)
As the relationship saying goes, “It’s complicated.” The United States is my home. My family’s roots go back to the Netherlands and Britain. Family roots were abroad — nearly 400 years ago. Neither the Netherlands or Britain could ever feel like Home to me as the US does.
At the same time, I feel grief for the millions who were displaced and killed as my country was developed through colonization. I can no longer celebrate Thanksgiving in the uncomplicated literally thoughtless way I did as a child. I know too much.
Thankfully — I am able to feel thankfulness, and so I now celebrate my second Thankfulness holiday.
I have had more difficulty this year articulating my thankfulness. Now the day itself has arrived, and I find my amorphous difficulty crystallizing into something I can express in words. Last year, I formulated fairly easily a list of what I was thankful for — specific people, specific events; this year I find my thankfulness rooted not in a specific anything that I can list, but in a profound shift in how I view the world.
My prayers these days are simple: “Thank you for all the connection and loving interconnection in my life. Thank you for giving me a loving heart and allowing me to feel the love and connection to friends and family.” I finish with a bit from the Sweet Honey in the Rock song Wanting Memories: “I know that I am you and you are me and we are one. I know that who I am is numbered in each grain of sand. I know that I’ve been blessed again and over again.”
I am thankful for music in my life. In joining my church choir recently I have come to understand music has always been an unrecognized ministry in my life. For decades I have had the experience in one chorus or another of becoming one with the audience and feeling how profoundly the musical experience brings us together. Sharing the air thins the boundaries between us, and our interconnection is brought to the forefront for a time. I have had the experience of being picketed by the religious right in a concert setting and seeing the picket signs gradually lowered to the floor, not to be raised again. Our interconnection has another name we use more often — love, stronger than any picket sign.
In my church choir I have recently had the same experience of helping bring people together in interconnection. Love your neighbor as yourself comes from my spiritual tradition. Love. That’s the message of every spiritual tradition. And that’s what I’m thankful for this year — feeling the love. And being in two choirs, with twice the opportunity to share the love.
Reid Vanderburgh 