Global Lessons of Giving Thanks at Home

It was 10pm in the city of St. Marc Haiti when the town electric system crashed. Lights went out, radios went silent, fans stopped churning, and the people of the town slowly fell into a complacent slumber. In the distance you could hear the hum of generators from the local hospital. This noise served as a metronomic lullaby for the provincial seaport. Intermittently a taxi (more like a home-maintained scooter) would zoom by in the darkness. My host, as was her gently gracious personality, explained to me that this was a common occurrence and having power is “a gift from God that we don’t take for granted.” She followed it up with a warm smile and said, “Well bedtime it is then.”

I was humbled with this idea. Something so simple as electricity. I take this for granted. I grew up in a home where it seemed so easy. We always had power. We didn’t have to worry about such things. Being in a country where the next meal is not promised, electricity is a luxury. The spider webs of power lines that created a net over the streets, in St. Marc, was a constant reminder of the fragility of such make-shift infrastructure.

I took note from my host, thanked the powers that be for the brevity of energy, and turned in for a night slumber on the balcony of her home. I had set a mat on the balcony because the Caribbean air was a refreshing reminder of my own small place in a large world. I liked that feeling because it served as a momentary escape from the impoverished landscaped that lay beneath my perch. It was my moment of solace. By this time, it was 10:25pm. I was totally unprepared for what was coming.

At 2am I was abruptly awakened by cheering, singing, the smell of food, loud music, light, and the clicking of the pull tab from the fan on the balcony. I ran into the house as if I were preparing for a natural disaster, only to find celebration. The lights had come back on. And the world was resurrected from a drowsy slumber into jubilation. I asked my, now-dancing, host; “What’s going on.” She grabbed my hands and spun me around the kitchen in celebratory pirouette. “When we receive this gift, we celebrate because we don’t know how long it will last!”

I was again stunned at such profound joy. When the party ended, around 3:30am, I returned to my mat a new person transformed by unexpected gratitude that sprung from this understanding of impermanence. I scribbled in my notebook before drifting off to sleep: “Tonight I saw a community resurrected by gratitude.”

This week several of us come together to celebrate Thanksgiving. In a year of continual impermanence, where we will experience the pain of what Claude-Michel Schonberg, in the musical Les Misérables, described as “Empty Chairs at Empty Tables.” We will most definitely will have our gratitude seasoned with grief. In my life, I take inspiration from my beautiful host, in a Haitian home. Thankfulness, gratitude, and joy can live hand in hand with loss. But to accomplish such a task it takes a shift in perspective.

Many of the students and staff at Mountain Lake Academy will return home for thanksgiving. Some will remain with our on-campus community. But for all participants, no matter where they experience their turkey dinner, there is a message of hope. We can choose to celebrate the presence of each other in real time, and still leave room to mourn the absence of others without betraying either side.

We have spent a year navigating our nation’s dividing lines in a manner that have served to initiate national transformation. The community at Mountain Lake Academy is not immune to the growing pains of such things. We have spent a year mourning the loss of personal and communal security as many homes have been disrupted by the effects of the pandemic. Again, the community at Mountain Lake Academy feels this strain along with you. Many students here are missing family members and the familiarity of home. Many are afraid for parents and siblings who are facing the unpredictability that comes with being vulnerable in a volatile world.

So then, the message of hope this Thanksgiving is not in what we have or don’t have. Nor is hope found in how tightly we can cling to things and people which lend to our ideas of security. There is no elaborate meal that can stabilize global instability. The message of hope is in the power to choose joy and gratitude in the face of impermanence. We, as a community, are reminding ourselves that to thrive in adversity takes the character to be present with, and for, each other. It takes the courage to accept conditions as they are and celebrate the moments in which we can see the light.

I will end this with a quote that I have recently heard in a song from the songwriter Eugene Hutz,

“One light, one dark both stand in a pre-flight stance.

Which one will defeat the other?

It’s the one who turns fight into dance.”

We wish everyone a happy holiday and are truly grateful for the moments that we can share with you.