As I gazed up, I was greeted by the constellation Cassiopeia, along with her husband Cepheus and their daughter Andromeda draped in the Milky Way. As my eyes adjusted to the light, my mind adjusted to the reality above me. A Psalm came to me:

When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars that you have established; what are human beings that you are mindful of them, mortals that you care for them? (Ps. 8:4 NRSV)

I recalled something I’d read earlier this year in theologian Miroslav Volf’s book about forgiveness, Free of Charge. The first chapter is titled “God the Giver”, exploring how God is first a pure giver (Free of Charge, 43). Some believe our response is to gravel before God—as if somehow our worship will “pay” him back. Volf says, no, our response is two fold—faith and gratitude. He writes:

Faith is an expression of the fact that we exist so that the infinite God can dwell in us and work through us for well-being of the whole creation. If faith denies anything, it denies that we are tiny, self-obsessed specks of matter who are reaching for the stars but remain hopelessly nailed to the earth stuck in our own self-absorption. Faith is the first part of the bridge from self-centeredness to generosity (Free of Charge, 44).

Gratitude toward God is the corollary of faith in God. When I have faith, I affirm explicitly that I am a recipient of God’s favors, and implicitly recognize and affirm God as the giver. When I am grateful, I recognize and affirm myself as a recipient of God’s gifts. In a way, faith and gratitude are two sides of the same coin. At the same time, there is a certain progression from faith to gratitude. Faith receives gifts as gifts; gratitude receives them well. (Free of Charge, 45).

On this day of Thanksgiving I’m reminded of all these things—I’m grateful for all of God’s wondrous gifts. But I pray it may not stop there, and that by God’s grace I’d increasingly live in faith and gratitude toward the One who never ceases giving. The closing thoughts’ of Volf’s chapter remind me what this may look like in my life:

Every word and every deed, every thought and every gesture, even the simple act of paying attention can be a gift and therefore and echo of God’s life in us … You sit on your couch, beer or soda in your hand and junk food by your side watching TV for hours—that’s ordinary. You work around the clock not because you have to feed your family, but for no other reason than to park a better car in your garage than your neighbors have—that’s ordinary. You get up from the couch to play with your kids or you give your time and energy to help educate a prisoner or lend an ear to an elderly person—that’s extraordinary. Why? Because you are giving. Every gift breaks the barrier between the sacred and the mundane and floods the mundane with the sacred. When a gift is given, life becomes extraordinary because God’s own gift giving flows through the giver (Free of Charge, 53).

Thanks be to God!
Thanksgiving Day, 2011

Like many people, I’ve asked myself why God allows something like this to happen? I was ashamed of Pat Robertson’s comments this week about God cursing the Haitian people. I’m sure it only confirms for many people that a Christian God is a vengeful God, bent on causing humanity to suffer for their sins. Do you know what came to my mind as I viewed those images? Something I once read in Elie Wiesel’s book, Night, based on his time in a Nazi concentration camp.  One day he watches a young boy hanged by the Nazis.  In his head Weisel hears, “Where is He [God]? Here He is–He is hanging here on this gallows.”

“Why does God allow this to happen?”, I don’t have any easy answers, only more questions. Elie Wiesel reminds me that we’re not alone, this world is not alone. As Jürgen Moltmann has expressed, God is not impassable, he is present with us even in the darkest moments of this planet—he’s a suffering God, a crucified God. Does it give any meaning to what has happened in Haiti? Probably not, but he is with us in our suffering, weeping with us, mourning with us. His tears are real, they are for all of us.  God is with us.