A Thanksgiving retrospective

I came home on Tuesday night to find my street blocked by police barricades and emergency vehicles everywhere. I quickly discovered that a watermain had burst, and that everyone was being evacuated.

I've been staying- at city expense- at motels since then. Rumors spread that the structural integrity of our apartment building had been compromised and that it would be condemned, and that mold had been discovered and we would be kept out until this could be rectified. Turns out that neither are true, and we will probably be back home on Wednesday or Thursday. Meanwhile, they're even paying for our meals!

I admit that Fiji would probably be a better spot for an all-expenses paid vacation, but hey.

Meanwhile, I attended Thanksgiving services at St. Mary's yesterday morning, and  hadThanksgiving dinner  at the home of some friends and former parishioners. Afterward, we, went to see Lincoln- a wonderful movie, btw; Daniel Day-Lewis really does. as Dolores Kearnes Goodwin sais, make you think that you're watching Abraham Lincoln himself- and then went back to the house for turkey sandwiches.

Then back to the motel- and cable TV- which I don't have at home.

All in all, what could have been seen as a major inconvenience, if maybe not exactly a disaster, is working out pretty well. Major theology lesson here: God does, indeed. operate through contraries, as Luther pointed out. The whole experience has been a kind of commentary on the Theology of the Cross.

God is in the habit of doing what He did on Calvary: bringing good out of evil, blessing out of disaster, and victory out of defeat. In fact, it's His favorite- and in fact characteristic- way of operating.

That's a major life lesson for this Christian, and a pretty profound insight with which to celebrate Thanksgiving.