Paying Attention in November-Twas the Night Before Thanksgiving

I absolutely cannot believe it is Thanksgiving again. I am so sure it was just last week that I wrote about last year's community service and my silly dinner events;that it was the month of daily gratitude posts. But here we are. Tonight was the community Thanksgiving service. It's one of my favorite things here in my little world, and it serves as kind of a marker for me in this community. Tonight was really pretty amazing. It was held in the big Catholic church, the same one it was in the first year I attended, shortly after I moved out here. I remember sitting there in that big church that first year, all alone. I looked around me and wondered if I would ever belong in this place, ever fit in. I remember feeling very, very alone. In every subsequent year I have been more a part of this service, singing as part of a community choir, doing a reading, then being part of the clergy presence. This year, I was one of the service planners. I read, our choir sang and, the best part, I got to give the blessing. Yep,I stood in the front of a huge Catholic church and got to bless people. That little Catholic girl in me that used to play Mass was jumping up and down so hard I could hardly contain her! It was really a lovely service. We had readings from Scripture and from history and some prayers and lots of music from various groups in the community. This was followed by bars and cider and coffee in the basement. God was of course happily and tangibly all over it! In the beauty of the music and the language and the fact that it was the Catholics and the Presbyterians and Lutherans and the Baptists and the Evangelicals and Episcopalians and the Methodists and the nondenominational community church folks all coming together to be thankful and mindful and prayerful and joyful in God's name and to take up an offering that will benefit those who are the least in our community in the coming year.

It's been a long day with a few too many things in it in a week that has been much the same...I am way beyond tired, but I wouldn't have missed this thing for the world. Church can just be the best fun sometimes.