Does it have to be about God?
I work with (and know) people who don’t believe in God and wonder what they should do (if anything) about Thanksgiving. Who exactly are we thanking, and for what?
For starters, Thanksgiving is not a religious holiday. It’s a national holiday. Of course, when Thanksgiving was first proclaimed as a holiday, it was intended to be a day to thank God for all the blessings of this life. But America is not a Christian nation, or a Jewish nation, or a Muslim nation. We intentionally separate religion from our political structure. So for me, Thanksgiving is not necessarily religious.
(Actually, God is not necessarily religious, but that’s a topic for another post!)
But Thanksgiving is about ultimate reality. One does not have to believe in God to participate in ultimate reality. It is a fundamentally human thing to do. Life is about all kinds of little realities–work, getting groceries, paying bills, and so on–but it is also about ultimate reality: the meaning of existence, the beauty around us, the strength and beauty within us, the deepest hopes and concerns of our lives. Ultimate reality is anything we judge to be Real (capital R), anything profoundly important, anything that captures our imagination, anything that frightens us, challenges us, moves us.
Thanksgiving is about our relationship with ultimate reality. Thanksgiving is a way for us to turn our attention toward these deeper concerns, and to turn toward them in a spirit of gratitude. Whether or not you believe in God, maybe I can persuade you to believe in the value of celebrating special days like Thanksgiving–days that are different than your usual Thursdays, your usual Mondays, your everyday life. And on these days–and particularly this day–I hope all of us can turn toward the most important dimensions of our lives, toward all that makes life worth living–love, truth, beauty, justice–and reflect on these things with gratitude.
Plus, does anything taste better than stuffing?
Happy Thanksgiving!
