On Thursday afternoon November 27, American Thanksgiving Day, 15 people started showing up at our house for the annual ritual of gratitude and feasting. The group is fairly stable now–all islanders and two friends from Vancouver BC who come down when they can. Actually, the two Canadian friends are the longest participants since they started coming in 1994 when we still had children in the house and they were the surrogate aunties. Then as we met newcomers to the island we added them in ones and twos and the gathering grew. We had to use both the elongated dining table and a card table this year–who knows, next year we could be having two full tables. We cook the turkey, stuffing, gravy, and everything else shows up from appetizers to apple pie!

For Ann and me it’s a way to come fully home, to enter our island time at the completion of another year’s work–which is mostly travel away to offer seminars and attend conferences. One of the things we are grateful for are the friends who hold this community life in place for us–some of them gathered around the table, and many more who make Whidbey their home, and our home. 

So, of course there is a sense of story that comes into the day: we bring magazines, scissors and glue into the living room and cut card stock into the size and shape of placemats. Everyone is invited to make a collage of what they are thankful for this year. Not everyone gets into this activity, it’s voluntary… and provides an activity of gathering and snacking.

Then, about an hour before the turkey is done, we pull chairs into a circle in front of the fireplace and with a talking piece do a round of check-in. There is a candle lit on the coffee table in the center between us, we are listening without interrupting as one-by-one each person has the opportunity to hold a small stone in his/her hand and then speak– either using the collage or their memories as prompt. I think the deepest significance for me, and perhaps for those gathered, is that we are at a full resting point: nothing intrudes. No football games, no cooking details–just us, having made it another cycle of seasons. We take some long slow breaths into this slowness and then the stories rise. A community service project, a bike ride across America for charity, surviving cancer, a car wreck, the challenge and blessing of meaningful work, the hopes we have for the next year, how the now grown children are doing and where they are this day. 

When we are done, we bless the food and recite our prayerful concerns for the wider world. Then the last minute scurrying begins. People put their collages around the table, candle lit, songs sung, we sit down together, and eat and talk for the next 2 hours… there’s only so much one can eat, but there’s a lot to share in stories and discussion. Some of us are family, good friends who see each other often, neighbors… and some are folks who only see each other this one time each November.

It always amazes me how willing people are to speak their authentic stories into a space where it will be honored, into the presence of this little tribe of listeners. For this I am most deeply grateful!

What are you most thankful for right now?

Tell me that story!

Copyright ©2009 Christina Baldwin. All rights reserved.

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