For years and years, my wife and I have taken a walk in the afternoon of Thanksgiving Day. The feasting behind us by an hour or so, we step out under the usually gray mid-western sky. All is quiet compared the sound of her family’s conversation and her cousin’s cheering of the Chicago Bears. A chill breeze wakens my senses.
Walking always “right-sizes” me. It puts things into natural proportion. It helps me to not take things for granted. And that mental check is so important to getting to the intention of the holiday. We might have driven hours to get to Grandma’s at the speed of a mile a minute (or faster.) But the world feels different when you walk a mile. One foot in front of the other might take most of an hour itself. I am humbled, and so being thankful gets a little easier.
We always say “we need to walk off some of the calories.” Our bellies full of our land’s bounty. And in the years before Grandma passed, we’d pass a crop field, newly harvested. Neither of us grew any of the food on our table with the sweat of our brow. The field is maybe 50 acres, but the thought of tilling and planting all that land staggers my imagination, I wouldn’t even know where to begin. Again, I am humbled. I am in wonder of how interconnected all life is. I am thankful for how easy modern life is for us.
To make a loaf of bread, they say, takes about 200 gallons of water. The bounty of our Creator is awe inspiring! The last leg of the walk in Grandma’s neighborhood took us to a nature preserve across from her driveway. It is there to make sure mankind doesn’t use up all the trees and natural places faster than Mother Nature can grow them. I look over the housing development being built in the land to the north of Grandma’s house. Naked stick frame trusses await sheeting before the snows of winter. Wood here; wood there. It takes a tree about 40-60 years to mature to the point where it can be responsibly harvested for lumber. How old is the wood of Grandma’s wooden spoon on the mashed potatoes? Where did the wood of the kitchen table grow tall? I wonder. I am humbled.
Walking slows me down enough to take stock of the wonder around me – inspiring me to give great thanks; not only with my lips, but from the heart.
Holy Family Episcopal Church 
Thank you! This is so true. My parents grew up on farms in Steuben County, and I grew up in the city, South Bend, IN. However, while growing up, our summers were spent working on the farms. Why? My parents wanted us to experience and appreciate the amount of labor needed to get the bottles of milk which were delivered to our home from the cows to our kitchen table.
They wanted us to appreciate all the processes needed to produce our food and the kind of labor needed plus the enormous affects the weather had on all of that. I was truly blessed to have had those summers at the farm. We have so much to be thankful for.
Marilyn Van V
LikeLike