I don’t know if “anticipation” is the right word for today. But, there certainly is a lot of build up to everything happening over the next few days. There seems to be a peculiar amount of “psyching myself up” for this extended weekend of giving thanks. Obviously, there’s the eating (I tend to find ways to justify the forthcoming feast by calling a long walk from the parking lot or the hoisting of my coffee cup “exercising”). Then, there’s all the driving and the travel. Of course, there’s the beautiful challenge of being with gathered family members.

While I can’t control what other people bring to eat at Thanksgiving, can’t control the driving habits of other people (try as I might), nor can I choose who my family is or is not, I can do something universally and sorely needed. I can listen. In the times between spurts of busyness and frenzied activity, when emails and office work take a back burner to family, we can labor to find fewer words, being more present this Thanksgiving.

Eugene Peterson writes, “listening requires unhurried leisure, even if it’s only for five minutes. Leisure is a quality of spirit, not a quantity of time. Only in that ambiance of leisure do persons know they are listened to with absolute seriousness, treated with dignity and importance. Speaking to people does not have the same personal intensity as listening to them.”

So, take whatever momentary pause there might be during these next few days and, rather than filling gaps with words and activity, listen. Listen to the people who have come to be around you: the boring ones, the ones who tell great stories, the ones who tell the same old stories poorly, the ones you love, the ones you’re supposed to love. Grant to them the most dignifying of all gifts: your undivided attention.

Happy Thanksgiving. See you on Sunday,
Jeff