Come to the Water

Thanksgiving celebrations will be very different for many of us this year as we weather the COVID-19 pandemic. We won’t be able to enjoy our familiar, comforting rituals, such as going to mass, gathering the extended family for a feast, watching football with Uncle Charley, and preparing for out-of-town guests. Perhaps it doesn’t feel like we have much to be thankful for this year.

The prophet Isaiah offers us an image that might be helpful for this unusual Thanksgiving holiday:

With joy you will draw water

from God’s saving well;

then you will say to each other,

"Praise the Lord! Proclaim God’s name!"

                   —Isaiah 12: 3

The thing about traditional rituals is that you don’t have to give them much thought—just repeat what you did last year and the year before that and the year before that. When those rituals are interrupted, we find we need to draw on deeper wells of creativity and connection and prayer within us that we didn’t even know existed. The joy of digging deep and finding unexpected abundance leads us to praise God, who never lets the well run dry. Then, we can affirm with Shakespeare, “The only answer I can make is thanks and thanks and ever thanks.”

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!