Theme Conversation - The Thanksgiving Treasure Hunt

Theme Conversation – The Thanksgiving Treasure Hunt

Happy Thanksgiving!

Do any of you know where I originally came from? (That’s right! or That’s pretty close..) I’m from Korea, a beautiful country with a lot of green hills and steep mountains. (Show it on the globe.)

Thanksgiving Day in Korea (which we call “Choo-Seok”) begins every year with the image of the Harvest Moon; it’s a holiday to celebrate family and our happiness at being all together. For Korean thanksgiving, families get together and go out and look at the Harvest Moon in the midnight sky. That’s really different from Canadian Thanksgiving, but the feelings are just the same. 

Three years ago when my son was 6 years old, he remembered that tradition, and when I picked him up from daycare, there was a very full harvest moon, which was golden and beautiful, and my son pointed to the moon and said, “There! Mom! I see Korea! That’s Korea! I see my grandma and grandpa living there.” Can you imagine? He thought the full moon was a bright light that came all the way from Korea.

Did you get a chance to go out and see the lunar eclipse a few weeks ago? It was called a blood moon, because of its color. It was also a Supermoon - it looked bigger because it was at the closest point of its orbit around the earth. and- it was also the Harvest Moon! Were you able to go out with your family and look at the reddish moon through the telescope? The moon looked like a treasure! Many kids didn’t go to sleep at their usual bedtime that night, hanging on to that special moment of seeing that rare red moon for the first time. 

Today, we will hear the Gospel story in which Jesus says to a young man, “Go, sell what you own, and give the money to the poor so you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me.”  Jesus says to us, “You will have a treasure in heaven.” Like the beautiful, rare, unexpected, unique moon in the midnight sky, we can see the heaven, the treasure of life, in each person’s eyes if we take time to really look at each other. Today, we give thanks to God for our community, how we share our humanity together and pray that it blossoms like a beautiful full moon among us. So here’s the activity I hope to invite all of us to do with our children and youth. Let’s look around! In today’s Gospel story, we will hear twice that Jesus “looked around”. Imagine how Jesus looks around and looks at his friends and disciples with such intent love! Let us look around and look each other in the eyes. 

Friends (children), here’s your task before we hear the choir sing the Anthem. Do you know what colors your eyes are? When you get a chance to look in a mirror really carefully, you will actually see in your eyes more colours than you think there are! I invite you to go and find people, sit beside them, and look them in the eyes; you can do it with your mom or dad or brother or sister or your good friends. They have many different colours in their eyes as well - they shine like jewels! I hope you find out that the treasure of life, the treasure which grows in our hearts when we say our thanks to God, grows faster when we give thanks for each one’s presence here, today.