It’s the Sunday before Thanksgiving and I am sitting at the piano in our little church on the reservation. We talked, last Sunday evening, about how the Navajo word for Thanksgiving was, for a long time, Little Christmas (Kishmish). Our pastor says there was no understanding of the history of Thanksgiving and so it was seen as a precursor to Christmas, minus the presents.
He is a good and kind person and it shows in his view of life. He says he is grateful for boarding school because, even in the hardship, it was the place he first heard of God. He is grateful for his wife who followed Christ before him and helped to lead him to Christ and away from Native traditional religion. He is a gentle person and it is seen in how he treats those around him. I have read that after a few years, a church will take on much of the personality of the pastor and I see that here. There is a yearning to learn and a kindness which seems to flow from him and is seen exhibited in the church body as a whole.
We planned our feast last week. Jokingly, someone asked who would be a Pilgrim and I raised my hand, “I will!” We all had a good laugh over that and one of the ladies spoke of how the history of Thanksgiving is being erased because of political correctness. Yes, we live out here where many have only a generator and haul their water, and outhouses are not an unknown, but the reality of life helps one to see through much of the falseness of our present culture.
On this special morning, our son and daughter-in-law sit by our side and shi nali, our grandson, sits on my husband’s lap. We sing in English and we sing in Navajo as the room continues to fill. My husband comes forward to play the guitar and I am blessed to sing with the pastor’s daughter – God Binahji’ Adaniit’e – Leaning on the Everlasting Arms. My heart fills with joy as our voices blend and we sing from our beautiful Navajo hymnal, Jesus Woodlaaji Sin. We have all been leaning on those arms and they are holding us now as we join in worship.
Our longtime friends have arrived from Window Rock. We have spent many Thanksgivings together. They look at our son and remember aloud the day we laid him in his cradleboard, their gift to us at his birth. How did he grow so tall? They share his Navajo name with the others – Little Boy of White Clay Mountain – Ash Kii Glaesh Ni De Gai, the name given to him by one of the men in our church there. Of course he does not remember this, but he is the baby they cared for before he even knew them and they will always remember him brand new and wrapped tightly in his cradleboard. It is a bittersweet moment as they are reminded of their own son in heaven awaiting them. Our hearts are closely joined, having experienced the joys and sorrows of life as we have traveled through the years.
The Pastor preaches and shares his thankfulness to God for many things – for His beautiful creation of each one of us, His plan for each life, His sacrificial death. He talks of how Christ loved us so. His life was not taken; it was given. He reads a Psalm of thankfulness and I look around and am filled to overflowing with thankfulness for this gathering. His words flow from English to Navajo and back again, making sure all understand. It is a beautiful scene, with the wood stove crackling cheerfully in a little church in a big desert.
We worship simply, there is no fanciness about us, but we are a family, united in the bonds of Christ. Time is given for testimony and several rise to thank God for their families, His provision, His work in lives. We are thankful for the small things and the big things and we realize the importance of both.
After the service we gather next door to eat and fellowship. We have all been generous in our contributions of food. There is everything — turkey, mashed potatoes, freshly made tortillas, homemade yeast rolls, olives, sweet potatoes, steamed corn and mutton. We visit and eat and enjoy one another just as the attendees at that first Thanksgiving. It began in 1621, when Pilgrims and Indians joined to Give Thanks. 398 years later we remain, Pilgrims and Indians, grateful for God’s provision and each other.
Behold how good and pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity! It is like the precious ointment upon the head, that ran down upon the beard, even Aaron’s beard, that went down to the skirts of his garments; as the dew of Hermon, and as the dew that descended upon the mountains of Zion: for there the Lord commanded the blessing, even life forevermore. – Diyin God Bizaad – Psalm 133
Beautiful Words 