On Canadian Thanksgiving…
It is enough.
Three words.
They rain down gently while I am sautéing onions with one hand and using the other hand to help our six-year-old figure out what four plus one equals. It’s what we do: multi-task, juggle, press hard.
Out of the corner of my eye our toddler flashes, her cheeks burgeoning like a little chipmunk. I sigh, thinking of swiped marshmallows from the pantry’s stash.
In the background somewhere, the washing machine chimes its finish of yet another load. But I could be wrong: the house is thunderously rattling with the preschooler’s riotous banging on the piano, and it is nigh to impossible to hear much of anything.
A shrieking howl pierces the cacophony. A poor fallen marshmallow-stuffed chipmunk?
The hands of the clock on the far wall have less than a few tickings, and that ravenously hungry farming husband of mine will walk up the old stone walkway and be looking for a heaped plate of steaming good, six kids crowding in to be served up too. And I’m nowhere close.
And there are tears to go soak up, and a layered trifle of legos, Wedgits and crayons to scoop up, and little Levi’s still sitting here rubbing his eyes from the sting of onions and the agony of math.
This is my desert, daily and common, where I thirst for joy.
There are infinitely drier deserts. My lonely father-in-law sits to eat at an empty table, the sod at the grave of his wife of fifty years freshly laid. Dry.
A childhood friend takes work as church secretary to support her family, several adopted high-needs children, after her husband abandons her for the bed of her best friend. Thirsty.
Headlines wail of tragedies, disasters, catastrophes. There are real people, with real thirst, behind those emblazoned fonts. Strangling debt, crushing diagnosis, shattered dreams. The world is a parched place.
Someone, please send some rain.
The landscape of our desert is particular, our own. A relentless gnaw for contentment, happiness, perfection erodes barren caverns within. We run hard and yet days flat-line.
We thirst. Driven, we grope for oasis.
Someone, He sends some rain.
It falls softly, like a song, a long ago song His people are still singing.
Every Passover for more than two thousand years, the Jewish people have sung this gentle rainfall, Dayenu, over their celebration.
Each of His kindnesses, from the Exodus out of Egypt to the building of the Holy Temple, are punctuated with Dayenu: It would have been enough. If God had bestowed only one of the miracles, it alone would be enough to be thankful for.
Hear the rain falling on the dry places?
“If God had brought us out from Egypt… It would have been enough. Dayenu.
If God had only slain their firstborn and not given us their substance… It would have been enough. Dayenu.
So the Jews know: if God dazzled with another hundred Exodus miracles, so they would offer up to God another hundred thanks. And we add our own verses to the Dayenu song, “If God had given me simply any life, and not this life, it would have been enough. Dayenu Really, all that would have been more than enough. I inhale deeply. And these lungs of mine fill, heart pulses one of its 2.7 billion times, pumping more of the 300 quarts of the blood it will pump every hour. And I slowly exhale. I’m are alive. Yes, life may hurt. But just to breathe today is good. More than enough. Generous. Wondrous. And so it is: this body has 70 trillion cells each containing 10,000 more molecules than the Milky Way has stars… Today, children laugh on this planet, eyes sparkling. We’ve got some threads on our backs, we can reach out touch another’s skin and warmth and soul. There’s some food to put on the table, to be savored it with the 9,000 taste buds on each surface of the tongue, roof of the mouth, and throat. Miracle. Humbling. More than enough. More than enough. Three words wet my parched tongue. It is enough. Dayenu. It’s all gift. It’s all grace. It’s all God. I drink Joy.
Lord, three words will quench our parched places: It is enough. How you give more than enough, Lord… Photo: joy sprouting in a dry spot on our farm
If God had parted the Red Sea for us and not let us walk upon the dry sea bed.. It would have been enough. Dayenu.”
The melody surges higher, seeming to endlessly recount every single acts of God’s kindnesses, one upon one. For is anything less true gratitude?
Generic, non-specific “thank yous” ring hollow, false. Authentic gratitude grows out of the ground of specificity. It is the details that nourish genuine appreciation. The more we magnify, focus, pay attention to grace, upon grace, upon grace, the more we deeply, and slowly, savor the richness of God’s goodnesses.
If God had passed over me because of the sacrifice of His Son, and not bestowed one iota more, it would have been enough. Dayenu.
If God had given me only today and what is, and not tomorrow with more, it would be enough. Dayenu.”
Our deserts whisper with rain-rumor: our days can be saturated with gratitude, appreciation, peace. When the ordinary, messy, everyday life that He gives is enough, we lift to our lips the cup of joy.
A edited repost from the archives
