Matthew Lyle Landsman

Come gather here, on this frosty morn. Invite lost souls, from family torn. Assemble where kettles boil, ovens roast, and fires warm. No matter, if it be a meager meal or something more, come gather around and seek a hand to touch, to warm and hold. Then offer thanks and prayers.

Get together with fond memories, of one who toiled in a kitchen over yester-years. A labor of love began in the dawn of the day, not just to cook, but to beckon, to invite, to hearken back where echoes remain…incited by scent, by laughter, sighs, and a lingering presence from a celestial place. And again I’ll spend the day with a collective blend of all such days once spent, and sigh a sigh of such fondness and sentiment that love for departed brings her to home again…and I’ll look to the dusting of flour for a simple fingerprint left, a whiff of cologne that drifts from a place beyond…and I will smile a quiet smile at just the faint wistfulness of such a divine day…

Come gather here to give retreat for the prodigal, embrace to the chilled. To offer love from thin air where yearnings thrive, and relief eludes.

Come gather here, be it just two, or twenty. And give thanks for the offering of the day, be it in retrospect or hopeful of a cache of fresh inspiration to be dipped into in later days…It is otherwise just another Thursday, but is much more. And linger there on Friday…and even a day or two more.

My heart feels a resigned twinge of the constant barrage of offerings on a Friday called black…a Friday that reminds us to gather for the later giving…but it is time and patience and compassion in need of sharing, contrary to the things one might place in box or bag. It is love, it is promise. It is a pledge to be there in the dark months ahead that should be written in IOU’s for family and friend…It is a black Friday indeed that we look beyond our door to fill what the souls truly need.

I give thanks this year for simple things that find and fill me when I close my eyes at day’s end…and a knowing that all I see behind closed eyes is what accompanies me and gives relevance to not just the day of Thanksgiving, but all the days in between.

I will seek to find you, both to give refuge, and to seek it. Come gather here around tables large and small…and bask in the fires of home, whether from hearth or heart, to chase away the chills and lonesome days.

I call out to the hearts of those close and far, be it by miles or a lack of agreement on life’s issues…I will long for a glad closure of the miles or mind.

Come gather here and offer gratitude to your version of a higher power for the blessings past, present, or in wishful days to come. Gather here and let your spirits flourish and give freely of things which can be found only in smiles and laughter, and essential faith…Come gather here.

Happy Thanksgiving and good wishes in the season ahead.

Matthew Lyle.