New in the Old

I'm feeling the need to have a little Thanksgiving Advent over here, preparing my soul and not just my meal. Because it is not a "holy-day" in the Christian calendar, I don't always treat it as something special. I often spend Thanksgiving doing nothing more than gorging on turkey and pumpkin pie and watching the best of all sports. I really want it to be more this year, perhaps because I am thinking of how to teach my children about the day. I want them to understand what it means to live with a posture of gratitude toward the One from whom we receive all things. We have been reading Thanksgiving books here and doing Thanksgiving coloring pages. We have even been singing Thanksgiving hymns for our evening prayer. I have been talking with Calvin about what it means to give thanks to God.

I interrupt these thoughts with a funny Calvin story:
Calvin and I talked today about all of the things we have to be thankful for, and I explained that we thank God for these things because he made them (or made us with the intelligence to make them). I wasn't sure how much he took that all in, but I should have known he was ruminating on it all day. At dinner tonight he asked, "Mommy, was God made?" Woah. Nothing like a little deep philosophical probing from a three-year-old.

I am thankful for that little mind, that never stops working, and for the ways that raising Calvin and Hobbes helps me to seek new meaning in old traditions. As we prepare to enter the feast, I am choosing to meditate on this:

His Steadfast Love Endures Forever

A Psalm for giving thanks.

100:1 Make a joyful noise to the Lord, all the earth!
2 Serve the Lord with gladness!
Come into his presence with singing!

3 Know that the Lord, he is God!
It is he who made us, and we are his;
we are his people, and the sheep of his pasture.

4 Enter his gates with thanksgiving,
and his courts with praise!
Give thanks to him; bless his name!

5 For the Lord is good;
his steadfast love endures forever,
and his faithfulness to all generations.

(Holy Bible, English Standard Version)