Giving Thanks: Old Timey Religion

Last updated on: November 21, 2011 at 10:32 am by James Ford

Giving Thanks: Old Timey Religion 2011-11-21T10:32:46-08:00 James Ford

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This Sunday as part of our Thanksgiving service, I shared the pulpit with our congregation’s religious educator, each of us addressing two things for which we were grateful. This is the second of my reflections…

Once upon a time, I think it was a lovely day. Certainly, everything was in full bloom, you could smell the flowers ten feet away, if you plucked a blade of what had to be the greenest grass ever and put it in your mouth it would taste sweet as honey. The sky was bright and blue with just a hint of clouds floating very high up. There was absolutely no difference between heaven and earth.

The young goddess Persephone, everyone called her Purse, home from university was gathering some of those flowers to make a garland. Her mom was sitting in the shade knitting. Dad was out of town on business. Everything was right with the world, after all heaven and earth were one.

Then, the earth cracked open and Hades, everyone called him Hal, handsome as the devil, looking a bit like Robert Pattinson, stepped up and out. Purse looked up as Hal put a finger to his lips signaling for her to be quiet, and walked up to her. She had never seen anyone so lovely, and as her companions were nearly all gods and goddesses, that was saying a lot. He reached out his hand and without a moment’s hesitation she took it. Together they walked over to the great crack in the earth and together jumped in. However, even as she began her descent down into the darkness Purse knew she’d made a bad mistake, and called out for her mother.

Her mother Demeter, no one called her anything but Demeter, or, perhaps ‘mam, heard the cry, threw down her knitting, and jumped up. But before she could follow Purse, the earth closed back on itself. Demeter was the mother of us all, the goddess of the earth, and with this first flash of fear and grief the first autumn immediately fell on the earth, in an instant the leaves turned red and purple, a riot of beauty, and in an instant more, they curled, died, and fell to the ground. The air turned cold, fallen leaves scattering in the wind and a heartbeat later snows began to fall.

The first winter separated heaven and earth.

As the earth tumbled into the great night the gods and goddesses agreed Demeter’s grief needed to be put to an end. So, they sent Hermes, god of messages as well as of lies, but that’s another story, to fetch the divine daughter from the night realms.

When Hermes arrived he found not a fearful wraith cowering in the dark. Instead Purse had become Hal’s wife and was now queen of the dead, she’d become a powerful and compelling goddess. He laid out the message to the queen of the dark that her divine mother was stricken with grief and the world was dying, and that to save the earth, Purse needed to return.

Reluctantly agreeing to her leaving Hal pressed a gift into his wife’s hands, a red pomegranate, saying nourishment for your travels, not adding how for every sweet seed she ate on her journey, she would have to return to Hades for a month.

On her way back, she ate four. And, so, today, we have four seasons, Summer, when all is right, Autumn, when we know things are turning, Winter, cold and dark, and then Spring, when the world turns again toward the sun.

An old story this one of Persephone and Demeter and of Hades, of the separation of things, of the seasons, and, deeper into it, of the currents of our hearts. It was recalled over the years principally at a turning of seasons. Our celebration of Thanksgiving, while grafted onto the problematic tale of pilgrim and native peoples coming together, is really about this season, Autumn, marking that turning from growing things to cold and snow, a minute of abundance, bringing us to a moment when we can feel the fullness that is our lives, past and future found here, now.

In this moment of thanksgiving, where I find I’m grateful for family and troublemakers and our faith community, and so much, so much more, I find most of all, I’m grateful for the good earth, our mother. I’m grateful for the air, and the oceans and the land, low lands, high lands, mountains, you name it. I’m grateful for the summer, bright with promise, the autumn, gold and red, perhaps the most lovely of seasons, even though, maybe in part because it is so shadowed. That story, after all, has joy and grief bound up together. Then the winter, even winter draws gratitude out of me. And, of course, it all turns, turns, and then once again, out of the dark and cold, Spring, and life bursts forth, and with it, dreams of possibility.

For this Earth, our mother. Wild and beautiful. Terrible and sweet. Bound up a secret. And I’ve learned the secret, which I now share freely with you: that we are of the earth, completely, totally, the dirt is our body, the sea our blood, the sky our dreaming.

For the whole mess.

I’m thankful.

So thankful.

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