Sorting, Thanksgiving

Yesterday morning my brother and I met at Mom's to do some preliminary sorting through her possessions. Our goal was to tackle the extra bedroom where many things had been stashed when Mom and Dad moved to this house. We wanted to get things that were alike grouped together and eliminate obvious trash. 

We saved a lot of stuff, but now we know what is in each box. When we are all together, things will be a bit easier.

We kept a lot of things, and found some surprises. 

Mom wrote a lot of reminder notes. We saved those. There were notes about when to pick up grandchildren, notes about appointments, notes with phone numbers on them. I don't know what we will do with those, but they were so much a part of her last years that we couldn't part with them quite yet. 

We found a file of old Christmas letters. We found files of things she'd kept that we'd sent her, or she'd collected about us, one for each of us. Of course there were pictures. 

There was an embroidery hoop with a stamped tea towel, and three needles carefully placed in the cloth, each threaded with a different color of floss, but not a single stitch taken. 

Projects we'd made in school were there, and a grade card or two, and high school year books. We found many items mom had used to decorate her homes, with quite a few from one metalwork artist Dad really liked.

Since there were only the two of us, we were very careful to only get rid of things none of us could possibly want. Stacks of old magazines. Junk mail. Old calendars with nothing written in them. Eventually there will be much more to dispose of after all of us have had a chance to look things through. And then to clean things out.

Yesterday was Thanksgiving in the United States. I have much to be thankful for.

I’ve read quite a bit of writing this week regarding Thanksgiving. Stories about more accurate history, and particularly how we have whitewashed our history, have been on my mind a lot. While the act of giving thanks is required of us and healthy for us at all times, the story we tell ourselves about the holiday of Thanksgiving does need a lot of redemption. Here is a link to one such story: Thanksgiving Myths Fact Check.

It seems throughout our daily lives, there is enough injustice, enough oppression, that whether it is Thanksgiving, or any other day of the week or year, there is a claim upon us to learn what is true, to do justice, to love kindness, and to walk humbly with God.

And that walking humbly with God brings me back around to Thanksgiving. Rebecca Barrett Fox shared something she and her husband shared at a Thanksgiving chapel service at Hesston College a few years ago. This is so totally worth the read, and brings us back to Thanksgiving in the truest and humblest and most joyful sense of the word.  Here is the link: Ruminations on Gratitude.