what makes you rejoice?

Recently, the weather has gotten a lot colder.  The leaves are changing colors, and Halloween has passed.  To the consumerist masses (or at least the stores in shopping malls), this means one thing: Christmas is on its way.  The funny thing is that in the middle of transitioning from costumes to candy canes, one very important holiday is forgotten: Thanksgiving.  Then again, as is often said, every day should be a day of thanksgiving.  As my grandma puts it every single morning when she wakes up, "Praise the Lord!"

You ever wonder, though, what Thanksgiving means to non-Christians, or even those not so deeply rooted in the notion of giving thanks to a god of some sort?  There's a (somewhat feared) tradition at my church where everyone in the English congregation gathers in the chapel, and my dad (one of the deacons) gets up and calls on people to come up and give thanks.  However, given that this takes place in a church, what we give thanks for almost always involves God. What about the rest of the world?

This is exactly what the band Audio Adrenaline set to find out.  In this video, they drove around asking random people what made them rejoice.  The responses were quite varied.  My personal favorites:

"Seeing other people happy."
"To be perfectly honest, I don't even know if I know the meaning of that word right now."
"What makes you think I'm rejoicing?" (This one was particularly amusing because of the way she said it).
"God's grace makes me rejoice, because he knows me for all that I am, and he still loves me."

I enjoyed this video precisely because it wasn't "strictly Christian."  Yes, it was made by a (fantastic) Christian band, but it wasn't a Chris-Tomlin-esque "Oh boy, God's grace is so high like the sky, and his love is like the ocean, let's all be happy together!"  I grew up in the church, and, frankly, I've grown tired of the constant repetition of God's grace and love and mercy and holiness because it just seems so...stale.  Anyways, it really was refreshing to hear some other perspectives of what the concept - and practice - of rejoicing might mean, even for a few minutes.  Then again, those four statements above pretty much capture, in order, what I thought it meant to rejoice in the last two years or so.  The last statement, in particular, really hit home after this year's RUF Fall Conference, which I will post notes and commentary about at some point, hopefully soon.

So what do I have to rejoice about?  Well, for one, I was re-admitted back to school for my last semester of college.  This past year has been a rollercoaster of emotions and actions, and I'm starting to see how God was working even then.  I'm happy to be alive.  I'm thankful for family, that we'll be having a huge family reunion for Thanksgiving in under two weeks.  I'm rejoicing for so many things (even while I'm unhappy, angry, or upset for others).  I'm rejoicing that I get to go to church tomorrow and see my fellow brothers and sisters in Christ - not because we're a perfect church - far, far from it, but because I'm excited for God to work through, and with, us to continue to mold our relationships.  I'll have more to say about this in the future, but for now, it's off to bed and hoping for sunshine tomorrow morning.