The Lord has yet more light and truth to break forth from his word
Lord, it’s been a pleasant day, in a month of pleasant days and yet I sit here shaking my head in disbelief.
This pleasant day results from a much warmer than normal month. Was there really any progress made at the COP26 meeting? When we discovered that India and China had changed wording from “phasing out” to “phasing down” use of coal – we shook our heads and asked what that means. And then we learned that India’s Government had temporarily shut down 5 coal-fired power plants in New Delhi to combat severe air pollution. What is there to celebrate, to give thanks for in that?
How can we celebrate at this time of Thanksgiving when people struggle to reach a new land and a new life of hope and promise and peace?
We pray for the migrants used as political tools on the Belarus / Poland border and now dispersed; for the many Haitians who for years attempted to find work building for the 2016 Olympics in Brazil, then in Chile and are now gathering at the Mexico / USA border risking death in the Rio Grande as do so many migrants the English Channel and the Mediterranean.
How do we celebrate Thanksgiving when hope dies and life becomes meaningless?
In Britain, we have enjoyed a much drier than normal November, but was this at the expenses of devastating floods in Andhra Pradesh, India and British Columbia, Canada and now Sudan declaring an emergency because of drought?
Where shall we go to celebrate when family is cut off from family?
Maybe we can start with the news that New Zealand will start to reopen it’s border and families will be able to meet again. Australia, too, is relaxing its border ban, allowing their citizens to return to families again. And yet, we have to remember that celebration can bring devastation too. We pray for all those caught by the bus accident involving North Macedonians in Bulgaria; for the people of Waukesha, Wisconsin, USA
When can we celebrate Thanksgiving?
Today, and yesterday and tomorrow, as the homeless find shelter and the lonely find their niche; help us to look for and listen to the random acts of kindness the media ignore.
Provoked by your steadfastness we celebrate with Thanksgiving, knowing that you have yet more light and truth to break forth from your word.
“O Father, Son, and Spirit, send
us increase from above;
enlarge, expand all living souls
to comprehend your love;
and make us all go on to know,
with nobler powers conferred,
that you have yet more light and truth
to break forth from your word.”