My head hurts from hearing so much about Black Friday and Pre-Black Friday and all the deals you don’t want to miss so come on out and buy buy buy spend spend spend! What would provoke me to go out on Thanksgiving Day and stand in line with hundreds of others so that I can save a little cash on whatever item is the big deal of the day. So now, in an effort to recoup lost sales, we have said, well let’s have the stores open on Thanksgiving evening so people can get a jump on the Friday sales. It makes me sad. I heard of many people complaining but I wonder how many were there tonight, waiting in line. It’s so easy to get caught up in the frenzy, isn’t it. We think we are going to get such a deal, and we have to make a decision right now or else we can’t get it ever again. Really? By and large, High pressure + Time constraint = Bad decisions and lots of stupid tax. Sure that may not be every situation, but often that is true. And then other question is, are we really getting a good deal? For example, Collin and I were talking about a TV that was on sale for $98 at Walmart. Well, yeah it is cheap, but it is only 720 and 60hz… is that something you would buy if you were thinking about getting a new TV? Most likely not, because you would want something that’s higher resolution and a faster refresh rate. And yes it would be more money, but it would also be a brand you had heard of. You get what you pay for. But they make it seem so enticing and it’s almost a “Well, I would be stupid to pass this up” type of mentality. Or you could save the $98 toward the one you would really like. I don’t know. This time of the year I get tired of all the commercialism. We think we have to spend so much money to buy things to make people happy, when all they really need are our words of life and love, our actions of caring, and time spent cultivating relationship. It’s great fun to give. But when we have taken it to a level of feeling guilty if we don’t, then I think we have missed the point.
Thankfulness begins when we look inward and upward. When we take stock of what we have as a human – life, consciousness, motor abilities, sight, hearing, singing, and all those traits that make us who we are as humans. Creator God gave us this. And even when some of them don’t work as well as others, or are fading with the passing of time, or have been disabled or disfigured, we have to start from a position of thankfulness to God for His gifts. Not only the gift of our human qualities and the gift of free will — our ability to choose — but the great gift of salvation provided through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. This single incomparable gift is a great place to start being thankful. Throughout the Psalms, you hear David’s songs of praise to the Lord — “You are good, Your mercy lasts forever. I thank You for who You are. Morning and night my lips speak thankfulness to You, My God. Though everything around me is falling apart and my life makes no sense, I thank you.” His honesty shows us that thankfulness is a choice that we make when we focus on the bigger picture. The stuff we deal with every day — those day-to-day trials that pull us off track and we get our attitudes all in a twist — that’s an opportunity to take that deep breath, center ourselves and say, “God, thanks. Thanks for this situation even though I can’t imagine right now what it is going to teach me. Give me patience. Give me grace. Thanks for who You are and for teaching me who You want me to become…more like You.” I want to live in that space. The attitude of gratitude that permeates who I am.
So in all the madness of the coming days, I want to be centered in a place of gratitude and thankfulness. Not stirred by the frenetic insanity of commercialism, but delighting in the simple gifts of everyday life.
‘Tis the gift to be simple, ’tis the gift to be free
‘Tis the gift to come down where we ought to be,
And when we find ourselves in the place just right,
‘Twill be in the valley of love and delight.
When true simplicity is gained,
To bow and to bend we shan’t be ashamed,
To turn, turn will be our delight,
Till by turning, turning we come ’round right.
Simple Gifts was written by Elder Joseph while he was at the Shaker community in Alfred, Maine.