Like everyone else, Thanksgiving represents a time when I think about all the ways I have been blessed, some of them material of course, the tangible ways, but mostly ways in which the Lord has directed my path towards his good, his beauty and his favor.
Along a grass pathway on the side of my yard, I designed a metal sculpture using some interesting words from the Bible that also reminds me of those blessings. If you like puzzles, you might like figuring out what the artwork says, shown in this essay. I won’t spoil it for those of you who want to figure it out on your own. (There is probably a way to print it upside down at the end of this essay, but I’m not that tech savvy). Suffice to say my word sculpture is a shortened version of the last line in Proverbs 3: 5-6, a verse that encourages us to trust in the one who keeps our path straight. This proverb, like so many, was written by King Solomon, a man with imperfections like the rest of us, but also a man who God gave immense wisdom.
Trust in the Lord with all your heart,
Lean not on your own understanding.
Follow Him in all his ways,
And He will keep your path straight.
From what I have read, Solomon spent a lot of time alone with the Lord. Like the path I constructed, he was on a path that was made only wide enough for one person to walk at a time. It is a path for individual reflection, where he was steadied between his thoughts and those of his Maker. That is a path that is difficult to take this time of year when there is so much to get done. Even when I’m by myself, walking along my own garden path, I forget to pause and reflect on the words in my own sculpture! I’m on another walk out there in the busyness and hubbub, overthinking the Thanksgiving holiday, trying to get everything in place so that the goings-on are smooth and seamless before people arrive at our home.
That isn’t exactly what Solomon had in mind when he used the word trust. In his proverb he is suggesting that we can do all the hurrying around we want, but if our heart is not in the right place, the path is going to have some rough going. That path may even disappear when the time comes and it’ll be too late to put aside our heaviness, our own baggage, and pick up the visiting luggage coming in. We won’t be able to let go of our own exhausted story long enough to hear the backstories from those we love the most. “Trust in the Lord with all your heart,” Solomon said, and get your heart right before your Thanksgiving people walk through the door.
At this, the beginning of the hustle of the holiday season, that’s not always easy to do. We are confused by family members in our mix who feel like strangers, and strangers who can feel more like family. How did that happen? There are family recipes calling for a cup and a half of good cheer and we only have one cup on reserve, and it’s being saved for someone else. We have an antique gravy bowl that has sat in the cupboard of our heart all year, but we can’t quite bring ourselves to use it until everything is perfect. We straightened up our house, but our heart is not straight. Our heart has faded somehow with history up there on the shelf, and needs to be taken down and dusted off and used before the doorbell rings.
One year as my elderly father joined us, I worried that he would have trouble eating at our crowded Thanksgiving table in his wheelchair. I imagined that it was going to be very awkward for him as family squeezed in elbow to elbow and began passing casseroles. With so many dishes and objects and people, how was he going to feel comfortable and part of the family?
After the blessing, hot food began to make its insecure way around from person to person, slowly, with everyone being very careful. But Dad was talking, telling jokes, ordering up more helpings. He was doing just fine. He was in good cheer and whole heart was on display, and he wasn’t wasting a minute of his meal on the fine points. That’s because he is left-handed, the only left-hander at the table. While our hands and elbows were knocking and banging together, his arm was swinging out and scooping up the goods. He had all the space he needed on the left, and then some! He was on a path I hadn’t seen – the other one – that’s the one we lean on and trust, not the one of our “own understanding.”
I don’t see anything in Solomon’s wise proverb about irritation, frustration, or impatience, or other paths that crisscross in front of us as we stay up all night smoking the turkey. We lean not on those things, the nuisances, the awkward moments and sideways looks. We don’t take those paths. We focus on Him with all our heart, and we follow the path _He_ has put in front of us. It could be on the left of us or the right, but it will eventually be straight and good, and get us to the end. It’s not a pathway of inconvenience and worry, or of perfect pumpkin pies with whipped cream, but one with a life in the middle of it called a blessing. It looks a lot like Thanksgiving, but it is more like a path of giving thanks.