The Villager Voice
I once gave a Children’s Message where I told the kids I was considering starting a new holiday called “Grump Day.” Grump Day would be the one day of the year designated for all of us to be as grumpy and whiny as we liked. We could complain to our heart’s content, give voice to all the things that are wrong with our lives, and the world, and basically make everyone around us miserable. The only catch was that during the rest of the year, we had to be thankful for all the blessings life brings us. They loved the idea - until the catch sunk in, that could only do this for one day a year. And so we began to wonder together why there is but one day of the year set aside for us to be thankful for life’s blessings. It hardly seems enough, doesn’t it? Just one day for Thanksgiving? We agreed that gratitude should be a year-long celebration. So, just to give them something to ask their parents about when they got home, we decided that Grump Day will be celebrated every February 30.
We will be celebrating our “attitude of gratitude” in a number of ways this weekend. Sunday morning during worship we will make the presentation of ourselves and our gifts to the church as we bless gift and giver alike when we bring our 2023 pledges forward in a Service of Dedication. That afternoon the wider interfaith community will gather for a Service of Thanksgiving at Deep River Congregational Church at 4:00 pm, and I hope you can join us; this will be our first in-person Thanksgiving Service of worship since 2019. And our message this week will put an unexpected twist on the idea of Thanksgiving when we consider “The Blessings We Call Trouble.” Hope to see you then.
Here are the links to the bulletin, Christmas Fair bulletin and Sunday morning service:
