Where does your
turkey come from? Probably a supermarket, which gets it from a corporate warehouse,
which gets it from a jobber or wholesaler, which may or may not actually get it
from a farmer. Eventually a farmer is involved. You can even ring out your own
groceries, removing even the cashier from the equation. You probably paid for
it with a credit card. When you get a bill from the credit card company that
isn't even the company from which you bought the turkey, you don't really
associate paying the bill with the turkey dinner your purchased. It's just a
bill you owe for all the stuff you got - whatever that stuff was. You probably don't
grow any of your meal.
Do you tear apart
a loaf of bread to make stuffing, or tear open a box? Some people eat at
restaurants or pick up meals restaurants prepare and take them home to eat.
They pay, again, with plastic that may even be removed automatically from their
bank accounts just as their pay is put into their bank account without their
having ever touched a check or money.
Don't
misunderstand me. I'm not a Ludite who thinks we should be forced to get rid of
all modern technology and conveniences. I like at least some technology and I
love my conveniences. Roughing it to me requires electricity, air conditioning
and a wifi connection. What I am noticing, however, is that we are tending to
get disconnected from the people and the process. It's hard to be thankful for
something that doesn't seem to cost you anything, comes from nowhere and
involves almost no effort on your part (or even on the part of someone within
the household.)
Even when and if
the family can get together, there are parades, football games, video games and
movies. In each, our avatars act and interact on our behalf. Our own interactions are limited to comments
on what the avatar does or does not do. When we get bored with that, we take
our plastic but otherwise invisible money to a mall where we buy more stuff
that is disconnected from the people involved in its production and
transportation, wait in long lines in order to interact (if necessary) with
cashiers who didn't get to have a Thanksgiving at home and who have been
repeating the same required scripts for ours (or who face the prospect of doing
so.) Little to no real interaction takes place that isn't required for the
activity before you head home. The alternative for those who wish it is to
reject even the shopping activity by giving people checks, involving more movement
of invisible money, more disconnectedness in the name of convenience.
What used to be
accomplished by a family now requires hundreds, perhaps thousands, of invisible
helpers and the price reflects all those additional hands. All the
intermediaries make it even more difficult to be thankful to God for what He
has provided. He is even more invisible than the people and processes. This is
one of the invisible costs we pay for the benefit of convenience. The
connections are easy to forget or ignore. That's why we need Thanksgiving more
than ever before. We need it to remind ourselves that we are not the source of
all our blessings. That takes conscious effort on our part. Consider the
following partial list of people to whom you should give thanks, and for whom
you should give thanks:
God, who is the source of all the people and things involved
Farmers Manufacturers Engineers Transportation Drivers
Inventors Marketers Store
Owners Store Managers
Sales People Jobbers Wholesalers Government employees
Inspectors Steel
mills Utility
workers Stock Clerks
Miners Oil
Workers Corporate
HR Folks Custodians
Weavers Designers Bank
clerks Police
The Military Doctors Nurses Scientists
Teachers Day
Care Workers Garbage
Men Bus Drivers
Carpenters Metal Workers Football
players TV
Crews
Stadium Crews Celebrities Geeks
of various sorts Assembly-line Workers
I've probably left
off many of the invisible people who somehow contribute to your Thanksgiving
and Black Friday holidays. The list isn't to make you feel guilty. It is meant
to make you thoughtful. Perhaps this Thanksgiving you might pay more attention
- be more conscious or more present and involved in the people and process, and
more grateful to those involved and more grateful for the blessings you've
received.
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