Notes from my Knapsack 11-17-22

Notes from my Knapsack 11-17-22
Jeff Gill

Even if you have to work at it
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Understood. You may not feel thankful.

This has been a contentious, conflict-ridden, turmoil-sodden year. No doubt about that.

If you are in that interesting subset of people who read newspapers (print or online, bless you all) but aren't much interested in politics, you may feel differently. And that's a neat trick which many of us might want to learn from you!

I write and work on the assumption, perhaps wrongly, that those of you reading columns like this are more than passingly engaged with political discourse. And whatever your basic orientation, politically, it's been a wild ride the last few years, and it's not likely to slow down.

Full disclosure: I'm writing this just before Election Day. I know, in general we're supposed to keep the seams turned inside, make the rivets not show, but the reality is worth sharing here. I have no idea how the election results turned out from Nov. 8, and what I have to say is, I believe, valid however they go, unless a flotilla of flying saucers came down that Tuesday and declared the entire election null and void in favor of Emperor Zod taking over.

But Zod wouldn't be interested in letting unrestricted media be distributed, so it's a moot point in any case.

Friends, whether your candidate or issue prevailed, I think it's a small blessing of this time of year that shortly after we complete our electoral competitions (and let's be thankful we're not in Georgia with run-offs to keep the TV ads pouring forth), we are invited on a civic level and in most of our churches to contemplate thankfulness.

Yes, Canada already did that last month, but this is our Thanksgiving coming up, and historical debates about whom discovered who aside, there's a complex and rich and entirely proper history to pausing each harvest season to be thankful as a community.

If you think the harvest season has nothing to do with you, well, you're wrong. Pause in the Ross Market parking lot and listen to the musical rattle of corn and soybeans pouring down the chutes into the silos at Granville Milling. As the bumper sticker says, "If you can eat, thank a farmer." For agriculture, in Licking County and beyond, we are thankful.

To carry on the short elliptical phrases, there are bumper stickers which say "If you can read this, thank a teacher." Yes, for educators and their ongoing work in language and math and culture, we are thankful.

And from our food to our basic knowledge, on to our homes and vehicles and utilities: we are thankful for builders and contractors and people who are handy, for autoworkers and gas station clerks and tank truck drivers, mechanics and parts suppliers, for village service department crews keeping the pipes and plants working below ground while picking up leaves and debris above ground.

The point being if you look at your stuff, especially the stuff that is most crucial to your everyday activities, you should have no trouble thinking of people you are necessarily thankful for all the time, just not consciously.

For Thanksgiving, we spend some time being intentionally, mindfully thankful. And every year, I'm thankful for that.


Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and preacher in central Ohio; he knows he's not as thankful as he should be. Tell him who and what you're thankful for at knapsack77@gmail.com, or follow @Knapsack on Twitter.