Thanksgiving from a Cynic

Pretending aside, I am writing this with a lot of cynicism and a bit of what may sound like condemnation. If it turns out to be offensive, I apologize ahead of time, but these thought have tumbled around in my noggin for a few days now. Meaning, I want to get them out. So here you are.

Tomorrow is Thanksgiving. 

A great holiday, a wonderful chance to sit quietly and be mindful of all we - as affluent Americans - have to be thankful for, be it material, relational, or spiritual blessings. But let me ask, how many of us will do that? Instead, how many of us will rather laze around over-eating all day, watching worthless parades and football (note, I did not qualify the football as worthless)? How many of us will gorge ourselves with more food than we can possibly - reasonably - handle in one sitting, go sleep it off, and then when we wake up go back for more? Have we truly degraded our "thanksgiving" to a simple little prayer before we dig in to our big dinners?

I am asking myself these questions, cause I am so guilty of this! It makes me sick with myself, with my self-indulgence and over-indulgence!

So, how many of us acknowledge tomorrow for what it truly is? If I had to guess, I would say we do not remotely do justice to acknowledging the multitude of blessings in our lives! Instead of thanksgiving, its just a special day for a continued trend of over-indulgence in the States. What a sad, and stark reality.

Then let me ask this, even if you or I were indeed mindful to set aside some time for thinking and thankfulness in prayer, how many of us would wake up Friday - BLACK FRIDAY - and forget about all the blessings (mainly material) and go out to buy more?! A large majority! How many of us just go spend money with no hesitation, no question in mind as to whether purchasing this item or that one is a necessary one? How many of us go shopping for the purpose of meeting needs, verse meeting the ever growing and demanding wants of the culture we are so proud of?

My qualm basically boils down to this: We say we are thankful when we are not. I believe that our actions of Black Friday indicate the lack of thankfulness in our hearts, as we go out to buy more crap to satisfy our ever growing appetite for stuff! In my mind, Black Friday stands for so much that I am against, which is why I refuse to shop then (and hopefully at all other times). I think it speaks loudly concerning our society's materialistic nature, about our belief that things satisfy us. Our actions show that we ultimately believe we can meet all our hearts could ever desire by forking out some cash for more stuff, which will wind up lost in the bottom of some storage-dedicated closet or at the thrift store.

Here is my plan. And if I go through with this to the degree I have been telling myself I would, then - honestly - I will be surprised, and very pleased. But this is my plan. STOP. ESCAPE. THINK. PRAY. BE THANKFUL ... all by myself, and I would love to even have a time to sit with my family and just share what we are thankful for! Its so simple ... but its so easy to let the day go by, and it end up just being a day where I eat too much.

I want to be mindful of my friends in Costa Rica and Nicaragua who have SO much less (materially) than I, but who know true richness in Christ in ways I don't. Surely I should be envious of them, not them of me. I think it is that way. I want to be mindful that every $50 I spend is the equivalent to many Nico families' monthly living expense! Do you see now where I am coming from? This blows my mind, because what is $50 to anyone of us? NOTHING. Pocket Change. And what is it to some Nicaraguan friends of mine? LIFE. Food. Drink.

At a local coffee shop, the on-going daily average ticket ranges from $4.50 to $5.50. Remember that living on $50 a month thing? Every day the same people come in, spend on average $5 on coffee ... daily they are spending a 1/10th of someone's monthly living costs without even a bat of the eye, without a hint of a thought about it! This is what is killing me.

And I know its not wrong! I am not saying that. I am simply making the point that I cannot justify this in my heart. We need to be aware of those around us - in our neighborhoods, cities, states, country, and around the world - who are struggling to survive the day. It might cause us to question how we thoughtlessly dish out cash! But I am guilty of the same. Maybe not on fancy, fru-fru coffee drinks. But there are other things. But I am working on being more aware of how I spend on worthless items. I am trying to stop altogether.

All I am saying, is maybe for our own sake, we should give tomorrow its fair due of extended, quiet thinking/praying with an attitude of thanksgiving. And perhaps, before we all rush to the stores to buy the next best thing that will be obsolete in two months, we should think about how we can use our abundance of resources to help the hurting among and around us, both locally and globally!

What if we all took just 10% of what we might normally spend on Black Friday and gave it to some end that would help feed the hungry among and around us?

God be gracious & merciful to us for our absent-minded over-indulgence on ourselves.


PS - I don't want to be a self-proclaimed cynic, thats not my goal. But this I think sounds pretty cynical, thus the title.