from yesterday:

The snow flew today. It didn’t land, but it will, soon. I thought I wasn’t ready for winter, for cold, for the longness of it all, but when I woke this morning to hues of periwinkle and silver and rose — where yesterday it was all kelly and brown — I was smitten all over again.

*****

I happily drove home with butter in my van — butter that started as grass growing in a field 20 miles away, eaten by cows well-cared for, faithfully milked, never chemically assaulted or added to. I mixed in flour and sugar. Jameson and I cut locally-grown apples, he clumsily but determinedly mimicking my actions, proud as his hands learned the movements. We’ll eat pie tonight. It may be all we eat, at this rate, but it’ll be good.

*****

We listen to this play list as we slice. William colors a portrait of George Washington, and we talk about “those days” and all together — this November sky, these apples, that flute — it makes me breathe slow and deep and smile.

*****

Last week I took out the remaining fall decorations: pilgrim figurines and their stories. We recited Psalm 100 this week, remembering those familiar paths of praise and thanksgiving. And we recounted the story of the people — people like us, with natures like ours, whose bodies felt hunger and cold and loneliness and despair just like ours — who persevered through great difficulty and at the end gave thanks. Homes burned, men imprisoned, fleeing to a strange nation, selling all to travel a harrowing ocean-journey, braving shadowy fears and very-real impossibilities, watching half their numbers breathe their last, and then waving bravely as their last chance to just give up sailed back across wide waters. And through it all, thankful. Because God. They were not perfect, but neither am I. In this is the greatest challenge to me. In their raw humanity, they could have grumbled (example: Jamestown), but no. Instead, they gave thanks.

Pause.

I think it’s safe to say, I tell the children, that we can probably be thankful on our bad days. Because God. Isn’t that what makes knowing Jesus miraculous? That we are set free from the slavery of reaction, and grace is poured into our hearts that we might live by faith?

*****

I have some favorite Thanksgiving books that I thought I’d share. I like the content — some simple, some bursting with interesting facts. I like the drawings. It’s a story worth knowing by heart and setting as an example. Principle, faith, gratitude: I want to be like them when I grow up.