Thinking Some Thanksgiving Thoughts!

October 9th, 2012

Not sure how it happened.   All of a sudden it's October.  Seems like we went from hot summer days to the month of October.   There is a book here in my library, well, actually there are  quite a few books in my library, can't think for the life of me think of its title, and I'm too lazy to go look, but this particular book is about spiritual rhythms and the seasons of change.

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One only has to have a good look around to notice that the season has gone through a considerable change.    The trees are just simply beautiful in their fall dresses.   The brilliant colours of reds, golden yellows, browns and fading green delight the eyes as the falling leaves do their seasonal dance and lay down great carpets of leaves.   You should see my front yard.  The carpet of leaves is a golden yellow slowly covering the green grass and one day later since the photograph below was taken the grass cannot be seen.   Yes, the season of Fall is here.  October has arrived!

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October for me, is about thanksgiving.   The whole year is about thanksgiving for that matter. October however, focuses us here in the Church more directly on the actual act of thanksgiving and to actively count our blessings, as the song goes, "one by one".

There is a wonderful prayer that captures the spirit of thanksgiving for me.    It begins by asking the Creator God to accept out thanks and praise.    It invites us to give thanks for the splendour of the whole creation.   A great spiritual exercise, involving holy patience, is to take the time necessary to watch as a spider spin its web.  Such an intricate work of art filled with creative wonder.   And the obvious this time of the year, as Fall spreads its beauty before us are the trees.    Their majestic beauty speaks of the glory of a Creator God ... who is Artist.

This little prayer of thanksgiving also invites us to offer our thanks for the beauty of this world in which we live, for this great country in which we are blessed to work, rest and play, and for the wonder of life.   Even in the midst of the ugliness of what may be happening in the world, Syria comes to mind, we are invited to give thanks for the gift of life, and the blessing of each new day.

We are also invited to offer our thanks for the blessing of family and friends and for the love that surrounds us on every side.  And to offer thanks for those tasks and challenges and accomp-lishments that demand our best effort, and delight us, and also to offer thanks for those disappointments and failures that teach us something about ourselves and also lead us to acknowledge our dependence on God alone.  That's the part that is usually hard for people to get their tongues around - the challenge of a Christian is to give thanks to God in all circumstances.   Need to clarify that perhaps, we are to give thanks "in" all circumstances as opposed to "for" all circumstances. 

A small group of running friends and I set off on Thanksgiving Monday for a bit of a run to see the Fall Foliage.  We started from Sunset Drive and made our way up, up, up and then down McLeod Hill turning onto to the Royal Road, with its rolling hills, and the company was great and the scenery just simply breathtaking in its magnificent splendour that ancient Jewish wisdom of the psalmist came to mind ... who some three thousand years ago penned these words "Let the fields be jubliant, and everything in them; let all the trees of the forest sing for joy!"

Running along the McLeod Hill Road with such wonderful sights along the way, on b oth sides of the road and in front of us, it wasn't difficult to grasp how and why the psalmist would have been so inspired to write such words as he 'sang his new song to the Creator..   The world around us, the splendour of nature, as the seasons change and we enter the rhythm of Fall, speaks loudly of the glory of a Creator God.

So, I invite you to perhaps take a moment and count your blessings - naming them one by one .....

the running rev!