Giving of Thanks

There was a time when all I cared about on Thanksgiving was eating.  I wanted things a certain way, the way my Mom made them.  I wanted it to be a day where things were just so.  And I could get cranky about things not being just so. This was before I actually started getting involved in the work of preparing a meal.  Over the past several years I have found that I actually like that part.  There is some selfish motivation in wanting to be the cook, I can do things the way I want, but I also find it rather rewarding to make things that people enjoy.  This year, I'm going industrial scale. 
Our church congregation is hosting the moving homeless shelter program in our county. Normally we do one week, this week we picked up a second because they were having trouble finding a host for Thanksgiving week.  Tomorrow my family and another couple from the congregation will prepare four turkeys, a ham, thirty pounds of mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, stuffing, and a bunch of pies for the over 40 people experiencing homelessness that are in the Safe Nights program.  I'm excited, but a little anxious.
You might think I'm bragging about how great this is, but I will confess something, I wish I didn't have to do it. I volunteered, and I am glad I did, I don't want pats on the back for it either.  I like cooking and I also kind of like the challenge of feeding so many people.  That's not what I'm talking about, I wish there weren't 40 plus people living in my church basement right now who need me to feed them Thanksgiving dinner.  Jesus said, "You will always have the poor with you," but he wasn't challenging us to entrench that as a reality, he was actually rebuking a disciple who was being disingenuous about his concern for the poor (John 12: 8).
There are people downstairs who have jobs, there are parents with little kids, there are people of all ages, races and conditions.  There are some people who fit the stereotype of homeless people, borderline personalities and outright mental illness, people who spend the summer months living in the woods and in hidden spots among the suburban and exurban landscape of Charles County.  There are people who you might never know were living in a shelter program.
I wish I could control the harshness of our world that puts people in such a situation the same way I control the cooking of a turkey or three.  I wish I could convince everyone in our society that this sort of shelter triage is not really a good long term solution and that we need to do better, but I don't have that kind of control over something as big and complicated as our collective psyche.
It might be the rather peculiar nature of my vocation, but I find that I increasingly gravitate to doing things that show results.  I like mowing grass and fixing things, I like cooking meals. Maybe it's the contrast that these things have with my main job, where results are not always plainly visible. I know that in the work of ministry the desire to have too much control is toxic.  One has to trust in a power that is beyond your own to do the work of vocational ministry, but you also have to learn to trust the people you serve.  It's not just you and God, there are other people involved too.  That's why it's often so messy.  Over-functioning is a symptom of trying to control too much and not letting others pull along side you.
I am thankful over this past fortnight that my congregation and a few other congregations have pulled this line together.  Whatever else I might feel about what I'm going to do tomorrow, I do not feel alone in it.  We, the collective we, all of us have a lot of very hard work to do to solve the cultural and social heart problem that is represented downstairs.  As for me, I guess I'm just going to try to feed them some turkey, that's what I can do for now.