This week our collective attention is focused on Thursday. Throughout the next few days, we will hear traffic and weather reports geared toward helping people prepare for getting where they want to be for the Thanksgiving holiday. The internet will be full of posts and chats about recipes and suggestions for preparing that big Thanksgiving feast. Yet with all this holiday preparation, it is good to be reminded that giving thanks is not just about a day but a way of life. The writer and spiritual teacher Richard Rohr helped me to remember this in a recent post entitled “The Gospel Economy” when he wrote:
Brothers and sisters, you and I don’t “deserve” anything, anything. It’s all a gift. But until we begin to live in the kingdom of God instead of the kingdoms of this world, we think, as most Christians do, exactly like the world. We like the world of seemingly logical equations. Basically, to understand the Gospel in its purity and in its transformative power, we have to stop counting, measuring, and weighing. We have to stop saying “I deserve” and deciding who does not deserve. None of us “deserve”! Can we do that? It’s pretty hard . . . unless we’ve experienced infinite mercy and realize that it’s all a gift. (Richard Rohr’s Daily Meditation November 24, 2019)
In a culture that defines a person’s “net worth” by “counting, measuring, and weighing,” Jesus calls us to an alternative way of seeing and proclaiming the equal value of each and every person as a beloved child of God. This is the foundation for the ministry of Cornelius Corps as we share a variety of ways to focus on the connection between spiritual formation and racial justice/reconciliation. As we celebrate Thanksgiving on Thursday, my prayer is to grow deeper into both letting go of cultural measures of “worth” and to realizing that life is truly a gift each and every day.
