Both Sides By Rev. Nina D. Grey November, 2003

We always had Thanksgiving at our house in Hartford, and the relatives came to our house. Uncle Dan and Aunt Ruth, cousins Naomi and Steve, and Grandpa and Grandma. Uncle Dan always brought a five-dollar bill for each of us kids, which he would slip surreptitiously into our hands before he left. But the main thing I loved was how tall he was, and strong, and vital and healthy, how much he represented stability and love and care in our childhood lives. As Uncle Dan and Aunt Ruth aged, they eventually spent winters in Florida. And because we were getting older, too, and developing our own independent lives and families, Thanksgivings changed, too. But as Uncle Dan got older, he continued to walk regularly and he did what I think is important for all of us – he created the best quality of life he could within his growing limitations.

Reinhold Niebuhr said it is the human condition to live at the junction of freedom and limitation. We experience body’s limitations and, mortal, we experience time’s limitations. We also face the limits, both imposed and freely chosen, of our family lives and the work we have to do. And laws, history, culture, and current circumstances also create limits of many kinds on our freedoms.

Our minds, imaginations and abilities to make choices about actions and attitudes make us free. Uncle Dan chose to walk a full mile every single day for as long as he possibly could, because it gave him strength and kept him in as good a condition as possible.

At this Thanksgiving time, many of us will gather with family and friends. Some will not be able to, because of physical or financial limitations. Some will not be able to because they are, sorrowfully, away from home, and cannot get back even if they would. Our beloved Devon Moss will be in Iraq continuing his military service over this Thanksgiving and until April, and so he will be unable to be with his family at Thanksgiving. We want Devon and Tinessa and the children to know that we are with them, in love and in prayer, at this holiday time.

Some will suffer the hardship of illness or grief in the holiday season. We will need and want to be a community of love, extending our sense of family beyond the limits we sometimes associate with family. Perhaps some will invite others into their family or friendship circles and bring more blessing into lives and the world. We do not always have to face and deal with our limits alone.

It is our task to honor the gifts we are given, yet also to acknowledge the hardships and grief that we hear about and see every day, and to offer something of ourselves for the uplifting of the human spirit. Aware of the suffering of so many, may we consider taking some opportunity in this season to respond for the healing and transformation of the world. We can do this in simple ways, through small but significant gifts of self, of charity, of commitment, of kindness, of witness, of advocacy. We can do so with friends, with families, with others in our church.

We are not in complete control over all life’s circumstances, health or illness, war or peace, but we can shape our attitudes, ability to imagine, to believe in and create, the best quality of life possible within our limitations. Our task is to use our minds and our imaginations and our communities of support to create the best possible quality of life for ourselves and those around us, at holiday times and throughout the year. My Uncle Dan tried to do this, through the years of his life. May we have a blessed Thanksgiving and help to create that for those whose lives we touch. Amen.

With love, in peace,

Nina