Karen's Favorite

It’s Thanksgiving week - Karen’s favorite holiday. When I think about why that is, it’s probably because it is kind of hard to commercialize gratitude. Karen’s tastes are simple. She takes pleasure in things that are honest, frugal, and real. In her mind, Christmas has become hyped beyond any semblance of reality. At Valentines, she thinks it wasteful to spend sixty bucks for a dozen roses that will be priced at a third of that the next day. Easter has lost its meaning amongst intense promotion of chocolate bunnies and egg hunts. And she absolutely hates Halloween, with its emphasis on darkness and death.
Thanksgiving though, is different. Sure there is a certain commercialism - like 39 cents a pound turkeys - but sandwiched as it is between the intense promotion of Halloween and Christmas, commercial interests probably don’t have the time to exploit Thanksgiving like they do other holidays. Thus we are left with, at least, one holiday that still has a sense of remaining what it was originally meant to be.
Perhaps Thanksgiving has maintained its meaning because gratitude turns us away from ourselves towards others for whom we are grateful, be that a friend or the Eternal God. There’s a certain humility in saying a heartfelt "Thank you," and financial interests have yet to learn how to exploit humility.
This Thanksgiving, (and every day) I’m grateful for Karen - this woman God gave me with her predilection for things real and honest. Thank you Karen for the gift you have been to me.
Pastor Bo