electricity!

This last Wednesday was family night at The Boys & Girls Club. It was a chance for the parents to come visit the club to learn about new programs and suggest plans for future change. Mostly since it was the day before Thanksgiving it was a time for a free meal and family time. After everyone was finished with the first family night activity which was to make a family tree and present it to the club we were asked to all join hands in a big circle in the homework room. This kind of display being almost subconsciously habitual being a Christian I was surprised to notice the hesitation of the whole group and the weak hand grips from the two parents on each side of me. Before Auntie Telee opened us in prayer, before I could bow my head and close my eyes, with everyone still connected by sweaty palms and loose grips she said with a sturdy teacher’s tone, “now we are all going to take turns telling everyone one thing we are most thankful for”. This seemed refreshing and I immediately began thinking of the perfect statement of thankfulness. The first thing that I could think of was my family and for some reason every other alternative that popped into my mind seemed to fail in comparison. As I write this I am reminded of a game I was taught yesterday called electricity. It’s a game where you hold hands in a circle with a group and as you go around the circle you squeeze each others hands as if electricity was pumping through your hand into theirs using your body to bridge the circuit. If you start going fast enough it feels like there is some other force rather than just hands squeezing hands. It seems as if there is this artificially created energy made by accumulating squeezes in repetition. As it neared my turn to share what one thing I was most thankful for I noticed that almost all the people holding hands together in that group of children and adults, mothers and daughters, aunties and uncles, brothers and sisters and cousins, all shared how thankful they were to have such wonderful families. I wondered if it were any other occasion other than that night, family night, all together holding hands with the people they loved the most on the day before the one day America sets aside for thanks and family that their answers would be different. Regardless, it was great to see everyone all appreciating the same thing and just like in that game electricity there was an energy transferred from hands and it filled the room with a warm fuzzy feeling. There was something special about a bunch of families getting together all connected by hands that made me and almost everyone else think of family first. Maybe if we come together and be electric every day and share what we are thankful for we will create an energy that spreads wherever we go. If only everyday we are as thankful as we are on Thanksgiving maybe being thankful wouldn’t require a holiday.