Thursday Th(ink)s - November 27, 2025

Today is American Thanksgiving—a fitting moment to write from the Thursday of my life, heart full of gratitude, looking back with tenderness and forward with curiosity.

When our youngest was small, she lived in a bright, bustling imagination. One evening over supper, she looked up and announced, “I wish we were a pig family.” No explanation. No qualifiers. Just the sincere belief that we were not living up to our porcine potential.

We still laugh about it, and some days, when the grandchildren tumble in and the dishes pile high, we suspect she was onto something. Our trough gets a little messy.

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Children are experts at collapsing the complicated into the simple. And if there is a theology of a pig family, it likely begins here: they admit their hunger. They simply show up, expecting to be fed. There’s something profoundly gospel-shaped about that.

Maybe our daughter, without knowing it, named the deeper truth of the day: pigs understand feasting and resting and communal joy, and they don’t hesitate to partake in all of it. Who cares if it gets messy! Life is messy.

There’s something wonderfully Thursday-years about wanting to be pigs: we stop fussing about appearances, stop apologizing for needing a little extra, and turn our faces toward the sun for a well-earned nap.

And I’m not serving ham today. I’m far too afraid it might be my great uncle.

Big Brains: "It's a form of human love to accept our complicated, messy humanity and not run away from it." Martha Nussbaum

Old Souls: “Piglet noticed that even though he had a Very Small Heart, it could hold a rather large amount of Gratitude.” A.A. Milne, Winnie-the-Pooh

The Ancient of Days: "Where there are no oxen, the manger is clean, but abundant crops come by the strength of the ox." Proverbs 14:4 (ESV)

Norma Jean:
Being hungry is both grace and mercy.

Thursday Chat: Embrace your inner pig; less polish, more party.