Ad Dominum

I intentionally did not write about Thanksgiving yesterday for fear that a few lurkers, drunk and fat on flightless bird flesh and carbohydrates and refined sugars, would track me down and tar and feather me.

So, a day late, on this hedonistic holiday of consumerism and the beginning of the season of the perversion of the gift of Incarnate Deity, I give you my Thanksgiving message:

I don’t want to hear what you’re “thankful for.”

Usually such lists of “I’m thankful for…” include things like the absence of hunger and disease, nice homes, automobiles, the longevity of family members, and abstract notions of a “free country” that God has blessed significantly more than other countries where the religion is less Christian, the water less potable, and the citizens less white.

The idea that God “blesses” some people more than others with health and the necessities of life isn’t scriptural or moral. God doesn’t favor one person over another by giving health to one and disease to another. We don’t somehow garner God’s good graces in temporal affairs, anymore than those who are starving or sick have somehow earned God’s wrath.

One more thing: God doesn’t bless nation-states, claims to the contrary notwithstanding. If you forward me a graphics-laden email that urges me to send it on to my friends that attempts to convince me that “in God we trust” should be plastered on our currency and public buildings, that email hits my trash bin. Why? Because it’s a lie. This nation, other nations too, do not “trust in God.” It is beyond the ability of a bureaucracy to do so. Individuals trust in God, and from there they move to create a just society. We don’t even see evidence of individual trust in God, much less a national trust in God.

If you must annually itemize a list of “thanksgivings” to share with others or to make you feel more American or pious, I suggest only one item: life. The gift of life that was given to all, freely, by God, who is no respecter of people, and who does not bless and curse by giving or withholding health, liberty, and the necessities of life.

Then Job arose, tore his robe, shaved his head, and fell on the ground and worshipped. He said, ‘Naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked shall I return there; the Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord.’ (Job 1:20-21 NRSV)

God gives, and God takes away. Blessed be the name of the Lord.

[Required reading from Catholic Anarchy]

Pax et bonum.