Although many meals provide leftovers, only Thanksgiving has enobled uneaten food to a grand tradition and memory-laden ritual. What was served warm from the oven is now served cold from the refrigerator or steaming from the microwave. I love Thanksgiving leftovers. Why?

I love knowing when I have a great meal, I can have more the next day and that often, the next day the flavors are richer and more satisfying, but no ordinary snack or meal of leftovers matches the qualities of Thanksgiving leftovers.  Thanksgiving leftovers have a hidden ingredient. They are flavored and warmed with memories of feelings.  The abundance of heart that lives in a yearly meal that celebrates with gratitude the interdependence among family, friends, the earth and the spirit makes the Thanksgiving leftovers so extra special yummy.

In the course of my day, my week, or my year I am living and responding to life. I engage in events and encounters. I am a participant. I am eating the meal the day it is prepared and served.

The "leftover" experience moves me from participant to recollector and reveiwer.  I get to bring the events and encounters together and look at and taste them all over again from a new and deeper perspective.  

When your soul hungers for another experience of meaning that has mellowed into truth, a feeling that now reflects an incandescent beauty or a deed that thunders with goodness, go to the cupboard of your soul where the leftovers are remembered and have a feast of self-awareness.

And forgive me for a balancing perspective. Sometimes a thought, a feeling or a deed that was so delicious when first experienced has gotten moldy, soured, or turned bad. That's a sign that it's time to purge the memory cupboad

If you want a guide to enjoying or purging the leftovers in the cupboard of your soul, do register for the Inner Advent program.

 

Like Thanksgiving, Inner Advent is the leftover ritual of our inner year. By the time we get this close to the solstice, our soul, like the refrigerator at the end of Thanksgiving, is full of events and encounters waiting to be remembered for their inner significance.

Over four weeks, the leftover weeks of the Inner Year, spend time reflecting on the year that is ending and prepare for the year that will soon be beginning.

 

Give thanks for your inner year, celebrate Inner Advent. It is a wonderful preparation for Inner Christmas. We look back, so we can look forward. We see who we have been, so we can open to who we are becoming.

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