by Chris Koellhoffer, IHM, for November 12, 2017
Whether the hurried departure is caused by an approaching hurricane, a raging fire, or the threatening menace of weapons and violence seems to make little difference. All who are catapulted into a hasty leave-taking face the same challenging questions: What to grab? What to save? What to leave behind?
This year we’ve watched the terrified flight of families driving their cars in panic as they attempted to outrace flames nipping at their tires. We’ve witnessed images of people 
clambering to the roofs of flooded homes as rising waters swirled around them. We’ve seen news feed of people carrying bundles larger than they are as they clumsily ran to escape invading forces.
One thing all of these people hold in common: They’re on the move and faced with urgent, seemingly impossible choices that will impact their futures.
In Rohingya refugees: Choosing what to save and what to leave, the BBC’s Shalu Yadav and Neha Sharma met and spoke with encamped refugees who had to make hasty choices about what they could bring with them and what they had to leave behind as they fled. In some cases, people had two hours to pack and hurry to safety; in some cases, mere minutes.
Asiya, a young girl who seemed sheltered from the reality of imminent danger, said she packed her face powder, makeup, and her bangles. She expressed sadness because she couldn’t take her favorite yellow dress with her. Rehena recalled how her house was set on fire as she managed to grab some rice and some oil for her mother’s headaches. Noor, an elderly man who had difficulty walking, said that he was able to take only what would fit in his pockets, so he stuffed them with cash. What he really wanted to take, he confided sadly, was his herd of cattle that he had raised with love like his own children.
What about us? Perhaps we’re among the many fortunate ones who have the gift of time and leisure to discern and choose. Assuming our loved ones would already be safe, what would we choose to take with us if we were limited to only what we could physically carry? What would we leave behind?
Now suppose we expanded our list to include what we cherish and hold dear beyond the limits of what our arms could hold. In this season when we practice thanks-giving, what would make our Top Ten chart of blessings and experiences that evoke gratitude?
Perhaps our list contains good health or relationships that nurture us or success in our chosen career. Perhaps there’s a particular person who has blessed us with understanding and presence through a painful time. Perhaps we might even consider mixed blessings, you know, the kind that aren’t especially welcome and often challenging and difficult, the kind we wish would go away or be resolved quickly in our favor. Moments of joy existing alongside times of sorrow. Blessings in disguise that we can recognize and name as blessings only in hindsight.
Those are the tricky ones, the mixed blessings. Born out of loss, and grief, and suffering of any kind. Coming from the shadow side of life, like the loss of a job that led to the work we had always longed to do. Or a serious illness that revealed how deeply loved and cherished we are. Or a letting go that offered us the opportunity to redefine ourselves.
Can we offer thanks for all that has brought us to where we are in any given moment?
In Thanksgiving: Grateful for Mixed Blessings, Diane Cameron observes: “Of course the ultimate level of this kind of gratitude is saying ‘thank you’ even before the good part comes. When you’ve had experience with mixed blessings you begin to know—even while it’s painful or unpleasant—that there will be meaning in it, and so we say thank you even when we’re getting hit hard.”
As we gather around the table with friends and family this Thanksgiving, as we volunteer at soup kitchens and serve dinner to those in need or those without loved ones nearby to celebrate with, may we cultivate a grateful heart. No matter what is happening in our lives this holiday, may we learn from everyone and everything, most of all to be grateful.
Takeaway
Take some quiet time to review the significant experiences of the past year.
For what is it easy to be grateful?
Where is it challenging to feel gratitude?
For what are you most grateful at this time in your life?
Share all your responses with our loving God, and give thanks.
Images
travelobservers.org
un.org
bbc.com
Wishing you and your loved ones peace and good health through the days ahead. I am so grateful for your encouragement and good company as part of the Mining the Now online community. Happy Thanksgiving!
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lost to drowning while out on the water in a sailboat with his brother. In the wake of this family tragedy, the surviving son is wracked with grief and bearing the guilt of his own survival. The parents are numb and walking around in a stunned daze.
us. We know that what appears to be a time of dying and diminishment is anything but. Perennials, all of which have delighted us with their greening and growing over the past six months, now are taking stock, reflecting on the remains of the season, and gathering themselves into a state of readiness for the unknown to come.
“To be of the Earth is to know
we were stunned by his final breath. Even though he was showing the progressive diminishment of long-term dialysis, his strength of spirit duped us into thinking (hoping?) we had more time together. Or perhaps we simply refused to read the final chapter of that beautiful book.
Sasaki set up a telephone booth with a rotary phone that was connected to nothing at all. Sasaki began a ritual of sorts, going into the booth, dialing the phone, and speaking to his cousin about the ordinary and the everyday. He told his cousin about the small and not so small events that had filled the hours of each day. He spoke of how much he missed his cousin’s company.
concern for the person who had died as well as assuring the deceased that the caller was doing their best to move forward. There were updates about how children were performing in school, what the weather was like, or their plans to leave or rebuild their homes. Tears and sighs and long pauses.
fierceness of Hurricane Irma’s hovering. Frightened faces of hundreds in a hurried evacuation, trying to get ahead of and outrun wildfires on the West coast and in the Northwest.
protect children and family is uncertain; the reality of impermanence; the loss of connection and belonging; the returning to a landscape—both inner and outer–forever altered by wind and water, by fire and fear.
pretty much all possibility of nourishment had gone away from the town of Bethlehem. That scarcity of sustenance caused Elimelech, Naomi, and their sons to depart and make their home in Moab. Not long after they settled in, Naomi faced another leave-taking, saying farewell to her husband who had died. For a woman of her time, to be without the protection of a husband was especially dangerous. It meant she was left with no voice, no income, no support. And some ten years later, Naomi had to once again let go of another precious part of her life: her two sons.
p into fifth gear and start hurrying and fretting and multitasking and plowing all night long. Don’t come back from vacation and fill up with stuff. Stay a little vacant. Keep the empty place. Stay slow. Keep paying attention, keep being deeply present….”
occasionally fall, all with seemingly equal delight and absent of any caution or fear. At the same time I looked at the two generations of adults gathered and reflected that, for many of us, falling meant something entirely different. Seasoned by the reality that what we have in this moment could disappear in another, tempered by our own experiences of letting go, we regarded falling as an experience that might more often result in injury, limitation, perhaps an unplanned or dreaded change in independence and lifestyle.
instead to listen to it, sit with it, sift through and discern its meaning. How to let go, let be, and let grow. How to become practiced and conscious of the art of both living and dying. How to learn from this most unpopular teacher the way to integrate all of our life experiences–the coming to birth and the fading away, the joyful embrace and the painful parting–into the person we continue to become. To mine our losses is to fall into a wholeness, richness, and depth we often can’t envision in our most painful hours.
It occurs to me that, although the circumstances of birth are different, the call of John the Baptist is not so far from our own. John spent his life announcing and pointing the way to Jesus. Isn’t that exactly what our lives are meant to do? To bear witness to the Holy One?
cleaned. The person doing that work leaves a mark on the surface of the clock to indicate that he/she has been there, that he or she’s done work and left a body of evidence. The witness mark makes it possible for one craftsperson to follow after another, to see the path they’ve taken, and to continue and carry on their work.
state in which tenderness prevails.” A state in which tenderness prevails. What a helpful yardstick in reflecting on our own lives and actions in this Pentecost season and asking, “Does tenderness prevail in me?”
Everything else is a footnote. Be the conduit for love. Insist on love against all evidence. Tell your daughter you love her and repeat as often as necessary.