Barn Boards and Baling Wire

If you go to a Thanksgiving service at a church this week, there’s a good chance you might sing an old favorite Thanksgiving hymn called “Now Thank We All Our God.” It’s based on a poem by an exhausted but faithful pastor in the midst of a deadly plague.

Amid the darkness of the Thirty Years War in 1637, the Rev. Martin Rinkart – a German pastor – is said to have buried 4,000 of his parishioners in one year, including his wife. Sometimes there were as many as 50 each day. His parish was ravaged by war, death and economic disaster. Rinkart’s home was a haven for homeless victims, though he was sometimes not able to provide enough for his own family.

In the heart of that darkness, with the cries of fear outside his window, he sat down to write a table grace for his children.

If you find yourself in the kitchen preparing Thanksgiving dinner, with extended family bustling all around, you may resonate with that description of what might be called a Thanksgiving Communion.

The Rev. Heather Murray Elkins tells about Thanksgiving preparations in her older sister’s kitchen.

“(It was) filled with the noisy smell of dinner (and) too many sisters who know one another too well in too few ways. When things heat up we sing songs, our common heirloom from our mother – ‘Over the river and through the woods to grandmother’s house we go ....’”

She said her assigned task was to feed her grandmother, who was no longer able to feed herself.