Black Friday, Green Wednesday… Has America Lost Its Mind?
Nathan (00:01)
Hello and welcome to Thinking Out Loud. I'm your co-host, Nathan Rittenhouse.
Cameron (00:04)
and I'm your co-host Cameron McAllister. Have you heard of Green Wednesday? Neither had I, but Nathan brought it to my attention. And now my day is that much worse. Just kidding. But this is a time where I think the second largest day of marijuana sales and it's people preparing to be with the people they supposedly love the most. And this is of course a window into our moment where Thanksgiving and other holidays are not necessarily always the most anticipated, but can be difficult. So we talk about that. This will be helpful to you, especially as we reflect on the nature of gratitude and why it's just so darn hard for us today. As always, like, share, and subscribe. And if you'd like to support our work, you can do that by going to www.toltogether.com.
Nathan (00:06)
Well, there's Black Friday and Green Wednesday and anything but Thanksgiving this week. Actually, we do want to talk about ⁓ Thanksgiving a bit here. Just a couple pointers for you to keep in the back of your mind as you go into this particular holiday. But I thought maybe we could do camera with a jovial introduction. Most people are well aware of what Black Friday is. For some of you, that will involve shopping. And for most of you, that will involve hiding from any place that remotely resembles a shopping area. So you can avoid...
That chaos know what that is green Wednesday. This is a term I hadn't known long But green Wednesday is a reference to the Wednesday before Thanksgiving Which is the second highest day of marijuana sales in the United States annually? ⁓ April 20th 420 the pot celebration day is the largest day of sales, but the Wednesday before Thanksgiving is the second highest sale of all your ⁓
marijuana related paraphernalia. Well, it's not contraband. mean, it's medically accepted in most states and half states. It's recreationally available. So there you go. I think one of the articles read, I was read, talked about the commercialization now of the term the cousin walk. he said, did you ever notice before Thanksgiving dinner that one of your cousins just needs to go out and get some fresh air or walk the dog or go get a bag of ice?
Cameron (01:03)
Hmm.
Contraband. Yeah.
Thank
Nathan (01:31)
Needs to make a little journey to do something else beforehand. so this is nothing new. People have been doing this with alcohol for ages, but this is just the next generation's way of ⁓ self-medicating ourselves into relaxation in order to enjoy a holiday with our extended family.
Tradition, I guess, lives on.
Cameron (01:56)
There's a long standing, so around this time of year, I tend to gravitate toward works of art that focus on bringing families together during a time of crisis and the ensuing drama and tension. I know, I know, I know, it's not very uplifting, but I think the supreme example of this is Eugene O'Neill's play, A Long Day's Journey into Night. It's an absolutely devastating work and it was adapted for the screen, but the best, the play is really the place to go. But also there are tons of movies that
that look at this as well, tons of shows. So for a while I asked myself, Nathan, is this just a little bit of a entertainment trope? Is it really so hard? But what has emerged, and there are a couple of articles here and there that have surfaced that said, this is just, this is kind of something that we make a big deal of in the media and it's fodder for articles and stories, but it's not really true. But actually it is true. And I think.
I'm just thinking out loud here. I do think it's gotten worse in recent years. do. So two things, I think it's a uniquely modern phenomenon and I do think it's gotten worse in recent years. think one way to look at this and then I'll stop being deep and we can just talk a little bit more in practical terms. One, one thing that happened in modern societies with nuclear families is you had basically you broke the families.
up and there wasn't, you had less and less to do with your extended family. You were scattered around and that's a byproduct of all sorts of different factors, socioeconomic factors, you name it, people moving around and all of that. But then suddenly during holidays, you all have to come together and now you have not been living together at all and you have very different lives and different values. You're geographically divided, you're politically divided.
Nathan (03:27)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Cameron (03:51)
And so all of those, those tensions really come out. So I think Eugene O'Neill's play came out in the 1950s. So that's when, and there, and there was a whole, by the way, there was a, there were a lot of books and stories that focused on suburban discontent. These are all, you could call this post-war literature and just fair full disclosure. I love that stuff. I'm a big fan of a lot of those writers, Richard Yates, John Cheever, John Updike, people like that. So.
Nathan (03:59)
Mm-hmm.
Cameron (04:22)
I'm not good at parties, as you can tell, but it focused a lot on, it's more than that. It's more than just socioeconomic factors, but part of what animates these stories is they're focusing on families often coming together who are scattered and now they have nothing in common. And suddenly, yeah, it's a culture. And so suddenly on Thanksgiving or at a funeral or at Christmas,
Nathan (04:24)
You
It's a cultural indictment, for sure. Yeah.
Cameron (04:46)
They're supposed to just get along and figure this all out in the course of a few days and it doesn't go well. It's often disastrous. I think, yeah, there's that tradition.
Nathan (04:51)
Mm-hmm.
Well, let's match this up against
a sense of what's the opposite of that? What's the alternative? And here I can say something a little bit interesting. And you know, all of our childhoods are quasi normal to us until we, you know, bump them into the rest of the world through experience. But think about this, for example, Cameron, through, well, when I left to go to college, every single member of my entire extended family on both sides scattered across however many states
were all part of the same Christian denomination. So the uniformity of our way of lives, even though they were geographically distinct, was such that we had so much in common. Like getting together with my cousins was a hoot. I mean, it was an absolute blast. This was something that you would get excited about. You couldn't sleep the night before. You're going to great grandma's house. You're going to see all your cousins and second cousins. ⁓ And a vision where we had so much in common that politics never even came up because it was just
so low on the radar. It wasn't even in the top 150 most interesting things that we had to talk about. I think ⁓ just because somebody once told me, yeah, you're like a 90 year old guy. Yes, back in my day, children, there was a sense in which maybe families had, even if you were geographically separated, there was a ⁓ cultural continuity or ethos of the way that it meant to be one of what it is that your kind of tribe was.
bound you together in a sense that when you came together for these ⁓ wedding, funeral, Thanksgiving, Christmas kind of events, it really wasn't something that you were trying to avoid. were longing to be there and you had stories to bring that we can contribute and you would learn things at the same time that would speak into your life. then, know, lots of mashed potatoes and hilarity, but ⁓ the fact that that's not the story for most people when we move into the holidays is something like
good, or ugly. It's not, it's just, I'm not making a value statement on it. We're just, hey, it's a new era and people are going to have to figure out how to, yeah. So the holiday has sort of like the expectation that you would be there and celebrate with your family is cultural momentum in a vestige of a different era that the holiday and maybe even the commercialism and the turkey around it has ⁓ brought us into this present form of gathering.
that now we feel like we must attend rather than something we were naturally drawn into.
Cameron (07:27)
So what's sad about Green Wednesday, or mean anything along those lines is it's so difficult to be around your family and the people you supposedly love the most that you have to do so in some state of distraction or intoxication. Again, I said things have gotten a little bit worse. So let me say why I think that's the case. Love to hear your thoughts, Nathan, as well.
In a sense, we're all primed for division these days. The power of suggestion is very real. And if we're constantly on our devices and on those devices, we're constantly being told that we're deeply divided and we're constantly being told that we should write people off on the basis of their politics, especially family members, then little wonder that this becomes a bit of a self-fulfilling prophecy. So there is that too, but I think that's a relatively
Nathan (08:21)
Mm-hmm.
Cameron (08:24)
small factor, or I would say that's a symptom rather than the underlying condition. A bigger one is that we have all been conditioned to think that we should just feel good all the time. I'm not saying happy because happy is happy is that's a bigger word. We should feel good and comfortable all the time and relationships are hard. so if we've also, so if you're walking around thinking that
we should be in a state of relative comfort and ease and relaxation, and also that our deep differences cannot be resolved. You can see how then gathering together with family members is going to present an immediate challenge to both of those.
Nathan (09:07)
But.
Let's back up a second. Hang on,
hang on, hang on. Before you go too far here, why is it that we're immediately, I mean, and so I think rightly so, but you're immediately going to our differences are what define us.
Why? Because I let's, let's imagine, right. But let's, let's, but let's imagine 70 years ago, maybe there's, you know, a couple of family businesses, ⁓ that maybe all the cousins and somebody kind of works for support. Like you have a constant like, this is what we as a family are doing. This is the experience that we are having. seems like the, we would be bigger and richer and thicker. And now we're at a time in which each individual is kind of doing their own thing. And then we're just kind of.
Cameron (09:26)
Hmm. Well, I said we're primed for division. that would meet,
Mm-hmm.
Nathan (09:55)
tossing every but all these various specimen into the same jar and shaking them for one day to see what happens. Is that part of it? we don't have a, we've lost even the communal ethos and vision within our own families.
Cameron (10:12)
Well, you used a really important word earlier. You said continuity between scattered family members who are still part of the same denomination and who had these deeper bonds and ties that bind. And that is something that is rare. and it's not that I don't want to overplay this. It's not that we, well, we have nothing in common with our family members. Well, of course we do. are, there are, we always have.
things in common with other human beings.
Nathan (10:42)
yeah, you're on their healthcare plan,
so I mean, that's a pretty deep link.
Cameron (10:46)
There you go. But also we, we also, mean, the other big factor here is, and we talk about this a lot, America has stressed for so long a picture of individualism that's quite radical. Where you say, you know, you are, this would define you by your differences, Nathan. You asked where that comes from. This is probably one major culprit because you, if you're a self-defining individual and
Nathan (11:07)
Mm-hmm.
Cameron (11:13)
throw aside all philosophical considerations here. This is what people drift into thinking, not even thinking. This is what people drift into living. This is a way of life in America. If culture is a way of life that lived in common, this is one of the biggest ways we live in common. Across the political aisle, we live as though, I get to be who I want to be. And everybody does it. This is not, I mean, this is not a left, right, center thing. This is everybody. We're all tempted to do this. And so,
Nathan (11:37)
Mm-hmm.
Cameron (11:44)
If you say, I define myself, I am who I want to be, and you make that so central, then you are going to be defined by your differences. That's going to be an outworking of that. And so then you will have irreconcilable differences, so to speak, coming up when you hang out with family members who have different political views than your own. It used to be, Nathan, Derrick, well, because in times, what you're describing in times past, you could have some of those conversations.
They would be tense, maybe sometimes, but they would also be good and fun, and they would be robust conversations rather than a threat. Now, my experience, Nathan, is that this is changing a little bit, and people want to have some of those conversations more, but certainly the overwhelming feeling is still that these kinds of conversations represent a threat, and people can't have those differences. It just turns into a fight or an argument.
Nathan (12:23)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah. Well, and so let's, let's turn this into a positive direction here. And maybe this highlights attention of like some of the frustration is, so what does Thanksgiving do or what does a big holiday meal do? You're, picking something. It's, it's a flamboyant expression of a basic human need. Like we all need to eat. And so we're, picking a meal in this case for Thanksgiving and maybe it's a Turkey or whatever your family's traditional go to somebody's smoking or grilling or, whatever.
and you're putting together some some feast and it is a Oftentimes, you know one big table everybody's gathered around and the focal point is Around the thing that you all have in common, which is the need to eat And now there's going to be somebody who's oh, I'm a vegetarian and it was the turkey organic or whatever, know Okay, but by and large the idea is that you you come up with something that is a physical focal point for the entirety of the group and for one moment
you're bound around the same thing, which our culture used to have a lot of. And Thanksgiving is one of those times in which we try to approximate that same idea of we are all physically postured and oriented toward the same thing. That is something that we need. And it's an extravagant, you're going to eat more at Thanksgiving probably than you need to. It's an extravagant feast. It's a display of collectively participating in a fundamental need.
Cameron (13:38)
Mm-hmm.
Nathan (14:07)
but the way in which we do it together has a unifying and binding element to it. And in doing that, it is good. ⁓ And traditionally, families did that, you know, like every day together. This is just expanding it out to include a broader range of family members. And so there is a real binding element that happens and it is ⁓ good thing. ⁓ Obviously, know, as Christians, we're thinking of this biblical, the feast meals and the...
Passover's and the Lord's Supper and all of this idea of is very rich and deep and it goes beyond just ⁓ Turkey into a think of it. I get really is a a deep communal community forming activity ⁓ Even when we don't think about it as such
Cameron (14:50)
Mm-hmm.
Well, sitting down and sharing a meal is a profoundly human and vulnerable activity. As you pointed out, we are, it's also an acknowledgement of our creatureliness. We must eat or we die, but it's also, we eat in a different way from tigers or squirrels. For us, it's also a form. Well, maybe not. That is debatable, but yeah, the kids table at Thanksgiving would tell a different story, but.
Nathan (15:12)
Well, have you seen my kids? I don't know. But anyway...
Cameron (15:24)
We also, eating for us is a profoundly, it's an act of fellowship as well. And so we, not only do we recognize that we need food to survive, but on a basic level, we're recognizing that we need each other to survive and not just to take care of each other. We need to pour into one another. We need to feed off one another, not in a vampiric or gross sense, but we need each other. We need relationships. Relationships are vital and essential to human survival.
Nathan (15:40)
Mm-hmm.
Cameron (15:54)
We're more than just mere survivors. And so all of that comes home. And again, yeah, we live in a society where even sitting down together at a table is incredibly difficult for everybody. Average families with children who have intense schedules, people who are just running on the treadmill of life. And then suddenly, so if we're out of practice, we're out of the habit of that. And it is a kind of skill.
And suddenly you have this one day, all right, everybody sit down and just act as if we do this on a regular basis. And there is no continuity. And this doesn't come naturally to anybody, which is why, I mean, there's some truth. Another funny genre, there are of course tons of comedies that center on this too, but I always think of the SNL skits, the SNL Thanksgiving skits. I mean, they're hilarious. And they always involve people, you know.
Nathan (16:23)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
Mm.
Cameron (16:51)
angry, simmering tensions everywhere, everyone hates to be there, more green beans, and it just gets worse and worse and worse. And it's funny because it's true, but part of the comedy is seeing a group of people who don't know how to do this anymore. And now they're suddenly expected to just perform.
Nathan (17:05)
Mm-hmm. Well,
so this is the thing, you know, the old joke about, you know, falling from great heights doesn't kill you. It's the sudden stop at the bottom. Where there's like a... the speed of life doesn't hurt you. It's just when that pattern is disrupted radically that all of a sudden we're totally disoriented. And so, if Thanksgiving is a continuation of a pattern of life that you have, it will be a wonderful thing if it's this massive disruption to like, what is going on here? Then it does...
Cameron (17:15)
Right.
Nathan (17:36)
feel like what's happening. the thing that I want to maybe think with you here a minute as we're processing it is like, how do we do this well? So we can, we can kind of laugh about the social, cultural, familial. mean, either laugh or cry. ⁓ but think about what happens when you come together in that time and maybe somebody is good in her teeth and saying pass the green beans, but just zoom out with me a second and think what's happened in the lives of everybody around your Thanksgiving meal.
this year. First of all, there are a of people who don't have families who won't be part of one. So there's that. If you are gathered around a large family, the probability of somebody having lost a grandparent, a spouse, a child, somebody who's struggling, lost a job, somebody who's in a time of, you know, pretty serious mental health issue. Like there's a lot going on anytime that you gather more than one person together. ⁓ So there's that. And then
I think Cameron, I've been thinking about Thanksgiving as the necessity to recognize the contingency of it all. Because you could sit down to a wonderful meal prepared together as a family and you can do that as a form of gloating or pride or boasting. Look at what we have. Look at the house that we have. Look at the resources we have. And that's gross. You could also sit down and look at a huge meal where you're going to have leftovers and you know,
more to eat there than you possibly could eat. And recognize there are 400,000 people starving in southern Sudan right now. Outside of even Russia, Ukraine, Israel, Gaza, you look at the fact that it really hasn't rained in most parts of Iraq. The Tehran is down to 3 % of its water. Their entire villages of people just picking up and walking and leaving their farm, like across Yemen. Pick your spot in the world, the massive amount of just want. And so you can come to your
big meals of feast either with gloating or with guilt. And neither of those is good. Those aren't good options. What you do do though, is that you look at the abundance that you have and you recognize that it could be other than it is. And this, this element, think of contingency of saying it wouldn't have to be this way is where we can properly give thanks to say, this is not because I'm better than anybody else. And it's not because I'm stealing from somebody else that I have this.
Cameron (19:57)
Hmm.
Nathan (20:04)
It's just that at this, ⁓ you know, little fragment of time here, we sit with the health to enjoy. And sometimes that health is sketchy with the food to enjoy. Sometimes the food is, you know, the resources are meager, but we're, picking out a moment to stop and to say, it could be other than. just rest in the present goodness, not, you know, hashing out the past, not fretting over the future, but just picking a moment to pause and say,
Cameron (20:07)
Mm-hmm.
Nathan (20:34)
This is good. And it could be other than, and in the future it might be other than. And we're going to give thanks for this moment that we have together as a gathered people. I think there's a lot of value in that because we just don't often enough. I'm wrestling with a big idea here. Help me polish that out a bit.
Cameron (20:38)
Mm-hmm.
Help me first though, Nathan, because I think one of the observations that you made is really apt, and that is that we tend to go for one of two things, gloating or guilt. So I'm thinking of a lot of the people I know who are more socially aware and who do read the news a lot do pay attention. And I'm telling you, as you well know, guilt is a very, very powerful temptation.
And the basic line of thinking would be, how can we sit down here and enjoy this banquet when there's such dire suffering? And you're right to bring all of this to our attention. So I'd love to hear you talk about that just a little bit, Nathan, and also just because many of your days are spent as ⁓ a pastor, too. How do we as Christians responsibly celebrate and feast?
in the midst of so much suffering, much of which you just outlined for us.
Nathan (21:59)
Yeah,
so I think there's an element of this where we have to embrace a little bit of mystery. And I learned this from my maternal grandfather who ⁓ lived a very simple life. House painter. We would gather in the basement of their house where we'd stretch, you know, piece together enough card tables by the coal fire to have ⁓ Thanksgiving. And he would often cry at Thanksgiving addressing the family and just saying, I do not know why. And if you looked at his life from any American metric,
You'd like, this is not a dude who's crushing it economically. But he would often say, I do not know why God has chosen to bless our family in this way. And he just received it as an overwhelming ⁓ mystery. that it and that it and it's not as it wasn't grievous joy of just like at the for this moment, this is good. Here we are together. We have what we need and more. ⁓ And just resting in that, I think, is a
Cameron (22:39)
Hmm. Hmm.
Gift? Yeah.
Nathan (22:58)
beautiful spiritual practice. He also spent
millions of hours of his life, I don't even know if that adds up, with other people in their grief and despair, visiting people in hospitals, preaching, like he understood the brokenness of the world and worked to alleviate that and suffered a lot in his own body. the fact of the matter is, there have to be moments where we just pause in the middle of it and receive the mysterious wave of the blessing. ⁓ And say, it's not like we stole this from, like,
There's a weird form of self-focus that comes from certain forms of this analysis that isn't healthy. ⁓ Where we're like, well, I'm ⁓ flailing around here a little bit, but I'm trying to point towards something.
Cameron (23:43)
I hear you there, yes.
Well, no, I think so you're right to go there. That's the, that's the uncomfortable truth there with, so it's one thing to, you said a lot of really good things. So let me highlight a few of them. First of all, just the basic mystery of receiving goodness in general, in a fallen world. think that's a very profound observation. And the story you told about your maternal grandfather is wonderful. And that's, that's a healthy human response. It's, it's not, I deserve this.
You know, I've built a wonderful life. I pulled myself up by the bootstraps, but it's also not, we should all be suffering and I should ruin your day too, because you have no idea what's happening just down the street with this meth addict and look at what's happening in South Sudan. All of that might be true, but what you're getting at there, Nathan, is an uncomfortable truth. If you go down that route, there's a perverse note of self-indulgence in that. Because then
Nathan (24:42)
Mm-hmm.
Cameron (24:44)
When you, if you want to be the person who ruins everybody's fun, so to speak, well, nobody cares about what's happening over here. Nobody cares about the famine in this land. Nobody cares about this poor person down the street. Is that really about the famine, the poor person down the street? Usually it's about you. This becomes a form once again of self-expression.
Nathan (25:02)
You're the hero or you're the victim and
either way it's about you.
Cameron (25:07)
Yeah, I remember once when I was in college, a dear friend, this happens when you're in college, suddenly took one class, started becoming more socially aware, and for maybe two weeks became a pretty insufferable person. Fortunately, they shook this off and have since graduated to a very mature and actually activist and beautiful way of dealing with a lot of this. for a while, this person was just every time, nobody cares about any of this, Cameron, nobody cares.
Nobody cares. And finally, I just said, and you didn't either until two weeks ago. And now suddenly, and then he just kind of shut up for a second. And I have my own moments like this. It takes one to know one. I've done this before too. And guess what? When I did it, it was all about me and my own self-expression. And was also a lot, a big part of it was also, Hey, look at me. It's not always like this, but it was a, it was a form of virtue signaling. Look at me. I care. All right. You're all sitting here and you're
upper middle class home, consuming all of this food. Who knows how that turkey got to your table. And I, I'm going to eat it too, by the way, but I'm aware. Yeah, it's not a very fun thing to admit.
Nathan (26:17)
Mm-hmm. Yeah,
do think there is a little bit of disconnect and discontent that also happens from the fact that maybe if you are prone to some of those dispositions and you're young person listening to this and you're against the machine and all, sticking it to the man, you're also still living based off of the resources of the thing that you're rebelling against. And so that brings in a little bit of a...
Cameron (26:45)
There's the inconvenient truth to quote Al Gore. No, I'm just kidding. Yeah.
Nathan (26:47)
There's, there you go.
so, but the art of giving thanks is I think where we're, where we're going with this, Cameron, of what does it mean to legitimately be able to step back and give thanks. And it needs to be said, and it's a good point and it's overused, but who are you giving thanks to for what? It's, hard just to be grateful in a vacuum. And so I think the art of giving thanks is directly proportional to our concept of the
Is there a hand on the scales of the contingencies of our lives that is mysterious? ⁓ Not the mysterious hand on the scales that runs the economy, but that runs the strings of our heart in terms of our gratitude and the way in which things could be other than the end. Just to be clear, I do think that proper gratitude and thanksgiving does manifest itself later in social action.
And calls it so these are not antithetical. I'm just saying that I'm not sure that unless you can receive well that you will be equipped to give well and I'm not and I also believe that if you don't know whom to give thanks to you won't have a framework and a model for how it is that you're to engage the brokenness of the world around you. So this art of giving thanks art isn't that sounds like a little bit of a crass word there a ⁓ What's the word I want?
Cameron (28:13)
habit
of giving thanks?
Nathan (28:14)
a
habit or a posture or the capacity. Maybe it's just a capacity that is part of the fruit of the Spirit that has to be softened and grown within us. That this capacity to give thanks is a prerequisite to a healthy human heart to engage the world and the Lord meaningfully.
Cameron (28:32)
so CS Lewis gives an illustration here that I think speaks directly to your point, Nathan. And I can't remember where this comes from, but he says, imagine a person who is reduced to a basically, this person is now a total invalid and utterly dependent on a caregiver. And he points out that often in these cases, the person who's been put into that position, so wasn't born this way, is now this way, grows
very bitter and especially gross to resent the person taking care of them. And he says, imagine though that this person is very grateful and even though in spite of their condition loves and appreciates and is grateful to the caregiver. says, truly there are circumstances where it is more blessed to receive than to give. Well, if you extrapolate from that,
Nathan (29:26)
Mm-hmm.
Cameron (29:29)
We as human beings, that is of course our position before our creator. So Thanksgiving is mighty difficult if you think you're the author of your life. Just the habit of Thanksgiving period, giving thanks for anything. If you believe you're a self-made person, and I'm not just speaking in purely economic terms, I'm speaking in terms of identity formation. And again, we drift into this mindset of thinking, no, we make ourselves, or,
I think more common parlance would be, ⁓ I have to live my life. I make my life. And if you live like that, that's now just a side that's not possible to do and it's not true. You can't build a life apart from the intense network of relationships. can't, but let's say, but if that's your assumption, it's going to be hard for you to say thank you to anyone. Now, when you actually get to a place where you recognize, must,
give thanks, it's going to be very important to know where to direct your thanks. Do you actually have an author? And this is why it's, I love thinking of Jesus lately. It's been very helpful to me personally to think of Jesus as the author of my salvation. So that is because I'm so often tempted to think.
Nathan (30:33)
Mm-hmm.
Cameron (30:51)
I'm the author of my life and I'm the author of my salvation. Until I take a look at my life and until I take a look at my track record and realize, wow, I'm in deep trouble if that's true. So I think those are some of the factors there.
Nathan (30:54)
Mmm.
Well, that's an interesting... Yeah, that's great though, because
complete the verse that you got that from. author, the fixer eyes on Jesus, the author of our salvation, who for the joy set before him endured the cross. And so you have joy and suffering baked in with Thanksgiving and fixation of the intention of gaze. I mean, there's a lot going on there. ⁓ But the future suffering doesn't negate the present tense joy and the past tense suffering doesn't destroy future joy. And so in the moment...
Cameron (31:14)
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Nathan (31:32)
We can be thankful. ⁓ Actually, ⁓ back here on the wall, you see this picture? It's not a good picture. It's a knockoff version. I pulled it out of my grandparents basement when after they had passed and moved on and hangs there on the by my camel back on the side of the bookshelf. It's a picture. I don't think you can see it very well, maybe of an old man giving thanks for a bowl of soup. And what I like about it is the deep thanks for the simple things.
Cameron (31:50)
I've seen it. Yeah.
Nathan (31:58)
And so I think that's a starting point for us is to say, okay, so let's not say you're not sitting down to a 47 pound Turkey. I don't know what Gartchian proportions turkeys are, but you know, simplicity. ⁓ I remember my, my other grandpa talking about driving across Syria in a Jeep in the early fifties, with a friend and realizing, Hey, today is Thanksgiving. And so they got out and cooked a can of soup in the can on the radiator of their Jeep. ⁓ you know, so whether or not you're, you know, cooking a
Cameron (31:58)
Mm-hmm.
Fancy. Yeah.
Nathan (32:26)
Yeah, fancy right whether or not you're cooking a can of soup on the radiator of your Jeep ⁓ Come Thursday or you're sitting down to a big feast the size of it is not The important thing in all of this is not the scale. It's the it's the sincerity of the intensity of the recognition of good things in that moment and you might have to set some other things aside to focus on it, but really I do think that when you you can iron it all out and
Give thanks. You're going to find some other curious things awakening in your heart that are good for you and good for the world around you.
Cameron (33:07)
beautifully said and a wonderful thought as we, many of us, begin to prepare for Thanksgiving and lots of other holiday festivities that are being celebrated very quickly and rushed at you in the stores if you haven't noticed. If you've seen the snowmen and the Christmas trees that are already out, what is happening here? You've been listening to Thinking Out Loud, a podcast where we think out loud about current events and Christian hope.