Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving

Years ago my high school friend Denise was caught in a snow storm while backpacking. The tent collapsed, and she and a friend huddled together in their sodden sleeping bags, waiting for dawn and passage out of the frozen wilderness.

     “If I had any money with me,” she said, her eyes glazed with a faraway look, “I would have burned it. What’s it worth, anyhow,” she said, her eyes snapping back into focus. “It certainly couldn’t keep me warm that night.”

     Money, as Denise so clearly understood, is worth nothing in and of itself. Money only represents something – the value someone or something brings to another. I value your service, and I express my appreciation with money. I value food and clothing and shelter, so I pay money, which represents the life force I have expended, or that has been shared with me.

     Ultimately, where does money and its value come from? I think of David Hawkins, a renowned physician and healer, who followed any and every question back to its deepest root, and its most logical conclusion: “Because God created the Universe.”

     I’d reframe Hawkins’s words to my own comfort: “Because Spirit spoke Creation into motion.”

     So . . . if all questions, and the impetus behind all actions, ultimately return to “Because Spirit set creation in motion,” then isn’t Spirit, or Creator, the true source of all abundance?

     The spark within the pumpkin seed is Creator, and so is the idea for Emily Dickenson’s poetry. That spark moved Van Gogh to paint, Ghandi to organize, Steve Jobs to tinker, and Mozart to compose.

     Creator catalyzes this outflow of creativity. If everything is an outgrowth of God’s creation, then I can relax in the knowledge that Source will sustain me. Ultimately, the source behind every gift, every paycheck, every bequeath, is God’s hand. Creator gifts me through others’ unfettered generosity. The humans around me are conduits for divine grace.

     I look around me and consider the source of every object. The wood burning stove, made of metals mined from the Earth, is shaped by Creator’s hand, clasped in concert with my own. Every object in this house ultimately dives into Creator’s arms as its ultimate source.

     So as I give thanks with family and friends, whom and what am I thanking? I feel gratitude for each step, each permutation of divine form. Creation telescopes into source, and then expands outward again. Like a three-dimensional wave form, creation expands out from a point (a thought or inspiration) that mushrooms into full potential. Then, the wave condenses into the single point again – the circle whose center is everywhere, and its circumference nowhere.

     Giving thanks, I stand at the crest of this wave. Thank you, Creator, for this perfected form. I send that thanks back to you, back to that seed of potential. From there, the wave begins again, expanding and contracting, moving in and out of form, on and on that wave rolls, through all of creation and all of time.

     Thank you for what I have. Thank you for what has been. Thank you for what will be. All of these are contained in the expanding and contracting movement of that undulating wave of creation.