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Everyone's Entitled to My Opinion: About Thanksgiving Movies
Friday, November 19, 2010 at 11:47PM Is there any subject Hollywood hasn’t covered? Genres multiply faster than starlets coming to L.A. Except in one area: Thanksgiving. So this Saturday morning, as a service to the readers of Students of Jesus, I offer a handful of Thanksgiving-themed movies.
Planes, Trains, and Automobiles: John Hughes’ 1987 tale of two misfits trying to get home for Thanksgiving still fits like a pair of bedroom slippers. Steve Martin plays Neil Page, an uptight businessman thrown by outrageous fortune into the care of the eternally traveling salesman, Dell Griffith, played by John Candy. The two men bond in ways both manly and true. Beyond the comedy is a yearning for home, and the final scene of the film not only welcomes both of them to the banqueting table, but us as well.
Pieces of April: A wayward daughter invites her dying mother and the rest of her estranged family to her apartment for Thanksgiving dinner. In 2003 Katie Holmes, (before she became the subject of Scientological speculation) plays April, who discovers that family means more than she imagined. Patricia Clarkson, the best-kept secret in movies, plays the dying mother. The final sequence presents a view of family that shows all of us at our best. And for one day--Thanksgiving--they all get the relationships right.
Home for the Holidays: Jodie Foster has only directed three movies in her career, and she chose this tale of a dysfunctional family’s annual gathering at Thanksgiving. Holly Hunter loses her job, makes out with her ex-boss, and heads home to face the music, wonderfully supplied by Anne Bancroft, Robert Downey, Jr. and Charles Durning. This film, by the way, has one of the most interesting opening-credit sequences I’ve ever seen. It will also make you genuinely grateful for your family, because next to this crew of misfits, nearly any family looks great.
Come Christmas time I’ll suggest a list of Christmas feel-good films--like Die Hard--but until then everyone’s entitled to my opinion about Thanksgiving movies, and these three are the best of a very small bunch.
Thanksgiving and the Will of God
Thursday, November 18, 2010 at 04:34PM 
Thanksgiving posts always seem to sound like such a scolding: we ought to give thanks.
Think about all the things you have and all other people who have nothing.
There, now: give thanks.
Don’t concentrate on what is missing, be grateful for what you have.
There, now: give thanks.
Ungrateful people are losers.
There, now: give thanks.
The problem is, guilt is a terrible motivation for giving thanks. When I read Bible passages instructing me to give thanks, it can sound the same way:
Rejoice always, pray continually, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus. (1 Thessalonians 5: 16 - 18)
On my grumpy days I feel like talking back to the scripture, “Don’t tell me to be happy! Do you think I could put it on from the outside?” (Here’s a happy-coat, why don’t you put it on?) And yet, giving thanks is the will of God. So if it’s the will of God shouldn’t I simply try harder, be obedient, and say thank you?
For example, frequently we teach children to say please and thank you as a matter of courtesy--as a way of teaching them how to get along in society. It’s the price they must pay to get their milk and cookies. We’re more concerned with the outward performance of good manners than we are with true gratitude.
As we approach Thanksgiving in the United States this year, I’m beginning to discover there’s a difference between giving thanks and having a thankful heart. I’m also beginning to discover that the Father cares more about thankfulness that flows from the inside out than obedience we wear like a cheap suit.
Paul’s words in Thessalonians have something to teach us about the will of God: does the Father want outward compliance or a heart capable of expressing his will and doing it naturally? Of course, it’s always better to obey than not to obey, but I think he’s after more than mere obedience--he knows thankfulness is the best thing for us. He knows that when our hearts respond with prayers of joy and gratitude to the situations of life, we are responding out of Christlessness and not simply parroting the company line.
Rather than hearing thankfulness as a command, perhaps we can hear it as an invitation:
Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, since as members of one body you were called to peace. And be thankful. Let the message of Christ dwell among you richly as you teach and admonish one another with all wisdom through psalms, hymns, and songs from the Spirit, singing to God with gratitude in your hearts. Colossians 3: 15 - 16)
God is not honored when we tell him what we think he wants to hear--even though we don’t believe it. He knows better. He is honored (and we are healthiest) when our hearts and minds flow naturally with his. In this season we do well to recognize that included in the flow is a heart-condition called thankfulness.
Monday's Meditation: The Thanksgiving Diet
Monday, November 15, 2010 at 10:51AM 
There are just 10 shopping days left until Thanksgiving! If that sounds strange, perhaps it’s because everywhere you look retailers have moved on from Halloween to Christmas. I don’t blame them--their job is to sell product, and retailers promote Christmas in November because they understand it's hard to sell stuff to people filled with thankfulness and contentment.
I promise this isn’t the standard “isn’t it a shame Christmas starts so early” rant. It’s not a rant at all, it’s the non-standard “do we understand the importance of giving thanks” meditation.
There are more than a hundred scriptural references to giving thanks. Consider just two Old Testament verses:
- Enter into his gates with thanksgiving, and into his courts with praise: be thankful unto him, and bless his name. (Psalm 100: 4)
- Give thanks to the LORD, for he is good; his love endures forever (Psalm 107:1)
These verses are more than poetry. There reveal the crucial importance of the spiritual discipline of giving thanks. Yes--giving thanks is a spiritual discipline, a practice, a habit, developed by those growing in God’s grace.
We enter the gates of God’s courtyard by giving thanks. The image is drawn from the Temple in Jerusalem: a massive structure whose courtyard was open to nearly everyone. The Psalmist instructs us, though, that the only way in was through thanksgiving. Not the mere attitude of gratitude, but the active giving of thanks: outward, vocal, and communal.
The Psalmist also teaches us that the proper response to God’s goodness is giving thanks. If we can catch the smallest glimpse of his goodness, it will generate thanks. Conversely, if we are not in the habit of giving thanks, perhaps it’s because we have not seen his goodness. And since his love endures forever, our thanks should be unending, and always new.
Thanksgiving is where Students of Jesus begin. The measure of our spirituality is not how much scripture we can recite. It’s not whether we can heal the sick. Nor is it prophetic insight worthy of Jeremiah. It is, simply, to see God’s goodness and respond in the appropriate way: with thanksgiving.
Finally, the good news gets better. In the U.S. we have a holiday devoted to the giving of thanks. Why wait until the fourth Thursday of November? Our Thanksgiving diet can begin today, by meditating on his goodness and giving thanks.
Thanksgiving: God's Will and Our Good.
Friday, November 27, 2009 at 09:23AM 
“A sensible thanksgiving for mercies received is a mighty prayer in the Spirit of God. It prevails with Him unspeakably.” ~ John Bunyan
“Gratitude bestows reverence, allowing us to encounter everyday epiphanies, those transcendent moments of awe that change forever how we experience life and the world.” ~ John Milton
“A thankful heart cannot be cynical.” ~ A.W. Tozer
“The careless soul receives the Father's gifts as if it were a way things had of dropping into his hand yet is he ever complaining, as if someone were accountable for the checks which meet him at every turn. For the good that comes to him, he gives no thanks—who is there to thank? At the disappointments that befall him he grumbles—there must be someone to blame!” ~ George MacDonoald
“Thanksgiving comes from above. It is the gift that we cannot fabricate for ourselves. It is to be received. It is freely offered and asks to be freely received. That is where the choice is! We can choose to let the stranger continue his journey and so remain a stranger. But we can also invite him into our inner lives, let him touch every part of our being and then transform our resentments into gratitude. We don't have to do this. In fact, most people don't. But as often as we make that choice, everything, even the most trivial things, become[s] new. Our little lives become great—part of the mysterious work of God's salvation. Once that happens, nothing is accidental, casual, or futile any more. Even the most insignificant event speaks the language of faith, hope, and above all, love. That's the Eucharistic life, the life in which everything becomes a way of saying "Thank you" to him who joined us on the road.” ~ Henri Nouwen
“Be joyful always; pray continually; give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus.” ~ Paul, the Apostle: I Thessalonians 5: 16 – 18
“"Praise be to you, O LORD,
God of our father Israel,
from everlasting to everlasting.
Yours, O LORD, is the greatness and the power
and the glory and the majesty and the splendor,
for everything in heaven and earth is yours.
Yours, O LORD, is the kingdom;
you are exalted as head over all.
Wealth and honor come from you;
you are the ruler of all things.
In your hands are strength and power
to exalt and give strength to all.
Now, our God, we give you thanks,
and praise your glorious name.”
~ David, King of Israel: 1 Chronicles 29: 10 - 13