The First Parish in Bedford

When I ask most people what they think about Thanksgiving they most often say family visits, big meals, football, and after Thanksgiving sales. They rarely mention giving thanks as the thing they remember most about the holiday. In fact giving thanks for most of us happens when we join hands before the meal and go around the table and mention what we are thankful for. And if we’re honest, most of us have nothing prepared for this and what we are really thinking is "Oh, please let me think of something intelligent to say before it gets around to me." And when it’s our turn we say things like "I’m glad that we can all be here together" or "I’m glad that my children like their teachers this year" or "This year the turkey is perfect." And there’s nothing wrong with those.

But, since you have a few days before the big event, I invite you this year, to think a little deeper, beyond the uncomplicated blessings of your lives to some of the more difficult and sometimes painful things that have made you the person you are as you stand or sit around your Thanksgiving table. To that end, I’d like to tell you a story.

After I graduated from Lexington High School, I went straight into college. I went away to Pennsylvania, primarily because it was as far away from home as I could get. When I arrived at school, I can remember sitting down on the edge of my bed and turning to my father and saying, "This is the wrong place, I don’t belong here. This is a terrible mistake." As with most fathers under those circumstances, having driven eight hours with a car full of every belonging I knew I couldn’t survive without, his response was simple. "Don’t be silly, honey, you’re just nervous. It will feel like home in no time."

I was there for three years and it never did. The entire experience was an unmitigated disaster. By the fall of my junior year I was no longer attending classes. I tried every day for weeks, but I would get to the classroom building and my hands would start to shake, and my mouth would go dry, and I would start to feel sick. And I’d go back to my room. At the end of that semester I was put on academic probation, which is a fancy way of saying ‘you are not living up to your potential in our fine institution.’ When I came back in the spring, I again had one of those ‘this is a mistake’ feelings. This time I went to a member of the administration and asked for help. I explained that I shouldn’t be there and that I needed his help in calling my parents and telling them that I needed to come home.

He did call. He did talk to my parents. He told them that I was clearly having trouble, but that he was confident that if I just persevered and they kept a close eye on me I would be fine. So I went back to my room. That semester I didn’t even try to go to class. I just sat in my room. I was terrified that I was going crazy. Those were the darkest and most endless days of my life. When the semester was over, I went home and waited for the letter to come that let me off the hook. It was a very polite request that I not return and that, should I ever feel the urge, I could feel free to re-apply. I never felt the urge.

Many years later I talked with my mother about those three years and what they had been like for me. How frightened I was and what a failure I was. She was, by then, fighting cancer, which somehow opened the floodgates and let us talk about things we had never been able to really discuss. I told her how guilty I felt about the money my family had spent on my failure. And she took my face in her hands, which is something she never did, and looked me right in the eye and she said, "Let it go. You made a mistake and so did I. You asked for help and I didn’t hear you. Put it down." And so I did.

Now this is a story with so many lessons that it’s hard to sort them all out. But the reason I tell it to you today is simply this: I’m here with you in this place today because of those three years and what they did to me. I would never have chosen ministry, or been chosen for it, without that experience. My life is what it is and I am where I am because of that pain and that fear and my survival and my healing.

Now I’m not suggesting that we only grow through pain and misery and that we should dwell on the most unhappy times of our lives unendingly. What I am suggesting is that we sometimes treat our lives and our experiences superficially. We look for the simple answer and in so doing we miss much of the richness and power of our experience that make up the texture of our lives.

So this year as you prepare for Thanksgiving I urge you to think about the more complicated things that have brought you along your road. Recognize the pain as well as the joy and know that you would not have traveled this far without both. Celebrate all that makes you who you are. Happy Thanksgiving!