Where my little hometown, beloved community, still excels at bringing everyone together in glorious connection is Thanksgiving, the 19th of June, and the 4th of July. Ain't nothin' like 'em!
Mind you, I spent most of my late teens & twenties going to Thanksgiving service two states away, in Maryland. All because of an electric organ.
Once our local Thanksgiving celebrations were shifted from the cathedral to the high school's cavernous Field House, the Lockharts stopped going. Instead, bright & early every 4th Thursday in November, my Dad drove us down to a church group between Baltimore & Washington, D.C., the present-day incarnation of the society where my Mom grew up. For many years after his passing - way too young, at almost 62 - Mim, Mom & I continued the Thanksgiving trek.
We sang the same songs we'd be singing back home, heard sermons of thanksgiving from ministers we knew, exchanged greetings with many people we went to school with or considered friends. Much like we would have at home, without the electric organ that was the supposed reason for the trek in the first place.
The whole thing never made sense to me. First off, church music down there was played on a reedy electric organ, just like up here - except they didn't have a grand pipe organ right across the pike, silent for the morning. I guess that was what rankled my parents, what we could have been hearing, if only...
Neither of them even seemed to think trading off one day of admittedly sub-par organ music was worth having a gathering of ALL our community under one roof at one time. The reasoning by the powers-that-be was that it didn't have to be in the church, because Thanksgiving was a national holiday decreed by President Lincoln & every president thereafter. But the most important reason was that Thanksgiving, of all holidays, should be celebrated en masse.
With this, I heartily concur. Just writing about the service gives me a thrill. Mind you, I don't take John, but slip out of bed, letting him sleep on while I dress, gather up my offering of thanksgiving (bunches of green & red grapes, being sure to leave him - my greatest blessing from God - a couple bunchlettes), and head down the street & up the road.
The deep sense of joy & connection as I sit in the bleachers (can sense Dad wincing), arriving early to watch the great swell of people arrive. Old people I've known since a baby, babies I knew before they were born who are now grandparents, newly weds & brand new parents, and all the younger ones, the ones I'm just getting to recognize or know. My heart grows 10 sizes each Thanksgiving.
And, yes - the organ is comparatively dismal. But then, the organ in the church is now (blessedly, temporarily) electronic rather than pipe. Who cares? Who's there for the organ music? The singing - that's a different matter. What impossible-to-express feelings sweep over me hearing my friends & acquaintances & "I'd like to get to know" thems ring the rafters with their uplifted voices. It never ceases to thrill, sending shivers of every blessed emotion I hold most dear up & down my spine.
That is why I choose to not nudge & cajole a slumbering John into coming. He didn't grow up in my small hometown, doesn't know the songs by heart, knows some people by sight & just a special few by name. At this holiday of the most profound connection, he'd be un. This one day a year gives me the perfect opportunity to let him know I'm just fine with him being who he is, where he is, doing whatever he is rather than feeling compelled to be by my side.
For a gal who basks in the wonder & delirious joy of connection - to loved ones, to friends, to community, to God - Thanksgiving in my hometown is one of the greatest moments of my year. I might look like I'm all by myself, tucked up on the top row of the bleachers, surrounded by families with the stray individual, but I am not alone. I am the most un-alone I'll be all year, watching each group or individual enter to my left, then take up their offering or find a place to sit, remembering all those who are no longer there, all the folks of my hometown who came to this place at this time on this day of thanksgiving & who made, in a wide range of ways, a difference in my life.
And then it is over. I take my time working my way down the bleachers, through the huge room, out the building, to my car, taking the time to beam big cheeky grins or toss off a wave, share a greeting or a hug, a high 5 or an elbow bump with very young friends, basking all of it. For years, as I passed through the foyer, I'd rest my hand in love & longing on the trophy case my father loving crafted as a gift in memorium to his youngest son, who died at 11, too young to ever shoot a basket in the very room in which we'd worshipped; the case has been moved on, now serving in a new place of honor at the school's performing arts center, but always & forever dedicated to the young life I love so well.
Finally, I'm at my car, then slowly making my way out of the parking lot, inching along, the fire house to my left & the football field to my right. I pause at the top, waiting for the break in traffic that will set my car heading north, to hearth & home & hubster.
A glorious gathering, my Thanksgiving celebrations in that great cavernous room with its sub-par organ & bleacher seating remain in my heart throughout the year, rich layer upon rich layer. And I am blessed - by church, by town, by friends & community.
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