Thanksgiving Unifies Us
Thanksgiving unifies us all in gratitude for blessings
By Laurie Toupin
November 23, 2002
Thanksgiving Day doesn’t much vary from family to family, from nationality to nationality, or from religion to religion.
This coming Thursday, most people will sit down to a feast of turkey, mashed potatoes, cranberry sauce and pumpkin pie. Most will watch the Macy’s Parade and football. And most – if only for just a moment – will stop and acknowledge their blessings.
This simple act of expressing gratitude not only signifies this special holiday, but carries with it immeasurable benefits.
One Thanksgiving, many years ago, Jan Miller, filmmaker and TV producer in Halifax, Nova Scotia, proved this for herself. “We had no money for dinner and it was my first Thanksgiving away from my family,” Miller says. She and her husband lived in a basement apartment in Edmonton, Alberta. She worked as a professional clown for an organization that had not been able to pay. Her husband, a beginning writer working on spec, brought in little money.
“So I prayed,” she says. Miller had always considered God the source of infinite supply, so she prayed to see that supply present in her life right then. “I wasn’t defining how that was going to come, but I was sure the answer would be that I would get a check from my employers.” However, when she approached them, they again told her that they didn’t have any money. “I wept all the way home,” Miller says. “But I should have known God had a much better plan.”
To help Miller stop the “what didn’t seem to be working out” blues, she worked her way through the alphabet naming everything that she had to be grateful for. “It was a challenge, but I remember my dad doing it once and his list was inspirational!”
By the time she got to “z,” she reached her apartment. Just then, a couple who lived on the third floor of Miller’s building invited her and her husband to join them for Thanksgiving.
“She was an actress and they just had twins,” says Miller. “They didn’t even have money for a turkey. They were having chicken for dinner. But they still asked us to join them for this incredible meal. It was wonderful! It was such an immediate answer to prayer!”
Although the two couples didn’t stay in touch, Miller promised from that time on that she and her husband would always serve Thanksgiving dinner at their home and invite anyone who had no where else to go. “From that day on, we’ve always done that,” she says.
Geoff Leboutillier, Miller’s husband, now an international film and television writer, can vouch for that.
“For many years, Thanksgiving was characterized by folding yellow IKEA chairs that I had to carry up and down three flights of stairs to our Edmonton apartment for the 25 or more guests we were having to dinner that day,” he laughs. Today, they have all the chairs they need at their house! “I also have memories of vast quantities of food. But there is always that moment where you stop and say what is this all about?’”
Mary Baker Eddy writes in her book, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, “Gratitude is much more than a verbal expression of thanks. Action expresses more gratitude than speech.”
Thanksgiving is, without a doubt, our most religious non-Christian holiday. It crosses all boundaries. It builds bridges between families, neighbors, and communities. It pays no attention to religion, color, nationality, or creed.
“[It] symbolizes everything that unites us as Americans,” writes Forrest Church in his newest book, The American Creed: A Spiritual and Patriotic Primer. “No one is excluded from its table of communion.”
The Nashua Area Interfaith Council would like to invite everyone to celebrate this “most religious of non-Christian holidays” at this year’s Interfaith Thanksgiving celebration.
The annual service will be held at the Arlington Street United Methodist Church, 63 Arlington St., Nashua, on Monday at 7:30 p.m. Mayor Bernie Streeter will read a Thanksgiving proclamation.
“A grateful heart a garden is,
Where there is always room
For every lovely, Godlike grace
To come to perfect bloom.”
- From the First Church of Christ, Scientist Hymnal
Laurie Toupin is a member of First Church Christ, Scientist, and serves on the board of directors of the Nashua Area Interfaith Council as a delegate at large.