Thanksgiving: Five kernels of corn

It's Thanksgiving morning. Sitting on my desk is the cheap plastic rosary I cherish because I received it during my second mission trip to the Dominican Republic. I dug it out of the box where it's been stored with other keepsakes, so I can use it during my Advent discipline. The idea came to me out of the blue a few days ago: every day between now and Christmas, I'm going to thumb my way through the beads, naming for each bead a person (or group of people) for whom I pray. In Mormon terms, think of it as like compiling a prayer roll. I'm going to try to avoid repetition, which makes it feel like an intimidating challenge: Can profoundly self-absorbed John-Charles think of 60 x 30 different people to pray for? (Can he remember their fricking names?) It forces me to widen my circle of concern, Enos style.

No prayers of thanksgiving allowed—that would make it about me again, whereas the point of the discipline is to focus on others' well-being. But today's Thanksgiving, so a different discipline is the order of the day. When I was growing up, my family did the "five kernels of corn" tradition. You have five kernels on your corn on your plate before you start Thanksgiving dinner, recalling the five kernels of corn that at one point supposedly became the Pilgrims' daily ration. You go around the table, and for each kernel, each person has to name something he or she is thankful for.

Here are my five:

1. I'm thankful for my partner. As of tomorrow (the day after Thanksgiving), we will have been lovers for nine years.

2. I'm thankful that my mother is still with us. And while I want to be absolutely clear that this does not make her illness acceptable, I'm grateful that out of the evil of her illness has come the good of a kind of reconciliation.

3. I'm thankful that we have an incoming government that I'm confident (hopeful) is trustworthy, respects human rights, can move toward (re)building better relations with other governments, and didn't win by hatemongering. Sorry to be partisan, but having that kind of government makes a huge difference in the world. I pray now they can cope with the enormous challenges facing us.

4. I'm thankful for communities that have provided support—here in North Carolina and in the past. As I say that, I'm wincing: Is there anyone out there who gives thanks for my support of them?

5. I'm thankful for the guidance of the Spirit in my life. That's not just a sappy "big finish." I actually paused a good while after writing those words, feeling hesitant about them. I feel I've been guided because I feel like my life has purpose and meaning, which is to say that I feel like my life has a direction, with prospects for accomplishment, for contribution, for service. But what if today it all ended in a senseless tragedy—a car crash, say? Would my life have had meaning? Do all lives have meaning? This reflection has taken an unexpectedly dark philosophical turn—but it's good, I guess, to not be facile in thanksgiving. I feel I've been guided. I feel God is making my life meaningful. I trust he does that for everyone, even though I have some inkling of how improbable that faith is. I give thanks for the meaning I discern. Whether the dead can find it in them to give thanks, or the living who suffer, is a different matter. But I seem to be one of the privileged ones—which isn't something to give thanks for; it's something to try to magnify into a remotely useful (it will never be "profitable") servanthood.

And on that uplifting note, let's go get ready to have a feast, shall we?

This reflection was not at all the uplifting little moment I expected.