Writing a short little post to wish you all a wonderful day of connection, joy, and gratitude (and maybe some really delicious food too) on this holiday!
My husben and I just came back from spending time with my family as my mom was having some pretty big surgery and we wanted to be there to support her and my dad. It ended up being a really low-key week (besides the surgery part) and a great reminder of what this season and the holidays are really about. Not the aesthetics of how fall or Thanksgiving or Christmas-y our homes can look (although I do care a lot about this), or how delicious we can make our food, or how great our outfits look, but about the people we spend time with. It’s about the connection, the relationships, the reflections of the gifts we’ve been given in life. The gifts we easily remember – like a surgery going well, but also the gifts that are harder to see as gifts – like having to have surgery.
So this season, I’m working on focusing less on the external appearance of the holidays, and rather the internal state of my heart and the posture at which I approach the season.
With that being said and as part of wanting to better understand my ethnic identity, and wanting to understand others’ stories too, I’ve found myself in tension with Thanksgiving. Not for what it stands for in practicing gratitude, but in how the holiday has been understood in the US, the real history behind it, and what it continues to symbolize for the Native Americans in our country.
I’m in tension and unsure of how to hold the balance of wanting to celebrate well with knowing this day is painful and represents, still, a lot of pain for a specific community of the US.
I haven’t figured it out yet, but didn’t want my not being able to figure it out stop me from sharing with you all the tension I’m experiencing. So here’s where I’m at – stepping forward and celebrating Thanksgiving, grateful for a day off, grateful for time with family and for delicious food, but also seeking ways to better balance the celebration with sorrow the holiday represents too.
The Emmanuel Gospel Center’s Race & Christian Community Initiative (RCCI) sent out a couple articles to consider regarding this tension that I found helpful and wanted to share with you as well: What Does Thanksgiving Mean to Native Americans and Deconstructing Myths of the First Thanksgiving.
I know this can feel like a Debbie Downer on a holiday that’s meant to bring a lot of joy, and I feel this too. However, I think there’s great importance for us to learn to balance both sorrow and joy well in every season. I think finding this balance requires us to take postures of gratitude and hope, which is also what this upcoming holiday season is all about.
Sending warmth and smiles to you and your family this day and the holiday season to come!