I remember a few years back, I decided to take part in the daily thankfulness challenge for the month of November. The year was 2020. And on All Saints Day and the beginning of Dias de los Muertos, it was a good time to give thanks for those who had helped to make me who I am. In the end, I found it to be a joyful exercise and that I had far more than thirty people for whom I was thankful.
The following year, I went back to try and participate again. But the world had begun to spin again. The faster pace had picked up. And within days, I could not keep up. Not to mention, I was in year two after losing my husband and emotionally I was drowning.
November has become this strange little month in our country between the high holy day of Halloween and the extreme high holy of December and Christmas. I have family members who explain it thusly: November first hits and it's Christmastime, except for Thanksgiving Day, which is Thanksgiving.
It's not that I don't love Christmas. It's my favorite holiday and I will be bumping to some holiday tunes with everyone else soon enough. But I think we lose something if we do not give November its due.
In the church, November begins with All Saints Day and ends with Christ the King Sunday. We look to all those who have made us who we are at the beginning of the month and end by celebrating our liturgical "New Year's Eve" (because Advent is when we start over). We have texts from the lectionary that get straight up crazy apocalyptic for those who are here for it. We have our own music and traditions that coincide with the beginning and the end of the month, as well as most of the Sundays in between.
This month is a chance to give thanks. For people. For our fur babies. For all of our blessings. For our church family. For all the ways God is at work in our lives and world.
And then to turn those prayers of thanksgiving into action - because prayer is never meant to remain solely in our head or on our lips. It is meant to overflow from us into the world through our hands and feet.
May it be so this November and always.
Blessings,
Rev. Janie
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