Missing Thanksgiving

First and foremost, Happy Thanksgiving to my family and friends back in the US and my fellow expatriates! I hope that each of you has the opportunity to spend quality time with people you love and care about since that's what this lovely time of year is about, right?

Speaking of which, when I'm in the Northern Hemisphere, this is my absolute favourite time of year. I love being surrounded by the crisp autumn breeze, watching the colourful leaves slowly drift to the ground, and waking up to the smell of apple pies baking in the oven. There's something peaceful and maybe even magnetic about the atmosphere that just pulls me in to the point where I feel like I'm left with no choice but to thoroughly enjoy the season.

This was my third Thanksgiving spent away from home and my first time in a place where it wasn't celebrated or even acknowledged. Although I didn't necessarily spend the holiday in a traditional way [especially since I don't know any other Americans in Melbourne], I attended St. Jude's Cross Cultures this evening and met other international members of the church, which definitely wasn't a horrible way to spend my Thanksgiving even though I wished I was home with my family. Thank goodness for video chat though!

Anyway, tonight's meeting concluded a trilogy of lectures on controversial issues that the church faces, the first being depression, the second being abortion, and the third being homosexuality. To be completely honest, it's sometimes a great challenge for me to sit through presentations on the last subject because I don't tend to see eye to eye with more conservative congregations, which unlike my home church, this one happens to be. However, I felt like the talk was given with a more neutral tone and the discussion that took place afterward was interesting and stimulating.

Earlier this week, I decided to give a Planetshakers Urban Life Group a try, which ended up being a fantastic choice. Aside from meeting some really great people, I was introduced to the NOOMA series, which are short films that give a Christian perspective on different life experiences. That night, we watched two, titled Kickball and Noise; the first one focused on answering the question, "Why can't we always have what we want?" and the second touched on answering, "Why is silence so hard to deal with?" They were both rather thought provoking and made me want to step back, re-examine certain aspects of my life, which I think is healthy for anyone to do from time to time, and perhaps even weave some of the concepts from the videos into the way I'm living.

I'm looking forward to our next study.