Canadian Thanksgiving

Two weeks ago, we had the privilege and pleasure of hosting a Thanksgiving Weekend gathering for our Esperanza's neighbors.  People began to arrive on Thursday and many stayed all the way until Monday. We had well over 150 people here and it was so fun! I was especially delighted to have my dear friend and her children from Kyuquot come and stay with me. In fact, many dear friends showed up. The weekend was filled with a variety of fun activities, but my overall favorite was the Thanksgiving church service.It was really special to have representation from Tahsis, Zeballos, Ehattesaht, Oclujie, Kyuquot, down island and from the mainland joined together in song, prayer, sorrow and thanksgiving.

Dean lead the time of sharing by opening with a joke that was hilarious. I was so glad that he did, because like he said in that moment, " There are two reasons why I told that joke: First, I felt like weeping during the singing and knew that if I went straight into a talk that I would just start crying, and second I wanted to break down some preconceived ideas of what "church" is."

My attempt to retell the story:

A man was seated next to a little girl on an airplane. He noticed her bow her head to give thanks to God for the food that the flight attendant had given her. Skeptical and intrigued he turned to her when she was finished and said, 'Let's talk. I've heard that flights go quicker if you strike up a conversation with your fellow passenger.'

The little girl, said to the total stranger, 'What would you like to talk about?'

'Oh, I don't know,' he said. 'How about how anyone can believe in a God when there is so much suffering in this world," and he smiles smugly.

'OK,' she said. 'That could be an interesting topic. But let me ask you a question first. A horse, a cow, and a deer all eat the same stuff ---- grass. Yet a deer excretes little pellets, while a cow turns out a flat patty, and

a horse produces clumps of dried grass. Why do you suppose that is?'

The man, visibly surprised by the little girl's intelligence, thinks about it and says, 'Hmmm, I have no idea.'

To which the little girl replies, 'Do you really feel qualified to discuss eternal mysteries and God when you don't know shit?'

Everyone in the room had a good howl: one because there was truth to the matter and two because Dean said "shit" in church! There are a lot of ways church is practiced and many preconceived ideas about what church is, but his point was that we were the church gathered to acknowledge our Creator and to love one another.