Widening the Table: What Thanksgiving Has Taught Me About Belonging

Thanksgiving, Tradition, and Widening the Table

Thanksgiving in Florida will never feel the same as it did growing up in rural Ohio.

Back then, it wasn’t unusual for Thanksgiving Day to be cold and snowy. Outside felt quiet and frozen, while inside was cozy and warm with the wood-burning stove glowing. My cousins had traditions on the other side of their family, so it was usually just my immediate family gathered around the table.

My mom never loved cooking, but she always went above and beyond to make the table beautiful and the meal feel special. Over the years, I learned to love her sweet potatoes — and now I crave them every November.

Gratitude was always important to her. Even when we complained, we had to go around the table before we could eat and say what we were thankful for. As kids, we hated it. As an adult, I see it as one of the ways she slowed us down and made the moment sacred.

Those childhood memories are what taught me to be thankful, to notice the simple things, and to see God’s goodness in ordinary moments.

But as I’ve grown older, I’ve started to ask different questions:
What stories do we tell at Thanksgiving?
And maybe more importantly — what stories don’t we tell?

The Thanksgiving That Changed My Thinking

Years ago, when I worked in campus ministry, we hosted a Thanksgiving dinner for students who couldn’t go home for the break. There were hundreds of students from all over the world, and we wanted to make it special.

I remember going to Sam’s Club with one of our students. She was the only Black student in our ministry at the time, and as we filled the cart with “Thanksgiving staples,” she kept suggesting we include greens on the menu.

I said no.

I smiled, probably thinking I was being kind, and explained that we wanted to keep it traditional — turkey, mashed potatoes, stuffing, cranberry sauce. She was persistent, but I didn’t budge. I didn’t understand how important it was to her to have those greens at the table.

Eventually, she bought enough with her own money to make a small side dish for anyone who wanted some.

It took me years to understand how small my definition of “traditional” really was. I had made my own experience the standard. What felt familiar and comforting to me became, in my mind, the “right” way.

And in doing that, I unintentionally excluded her story and her culture.

That memory still humbles me. It reminds me how easily we can confuse normal with mine.

Looking Beyond Our Own Table

Every November, we talk about gratitude and togetherness — and those are good things. But I’ve started to realize that even our national Thanksgiving story has blind spots.

We often tell a version of history that centers the gratitude of European settlers without acknowledging the pain and loss experienced by Native peoples. The story is more complicated than what many of us were taught — and telling the truth doesn’t ruin Thanksgiving. It deepens it.

The turkey doesn’t taste less sweet because we tell the whole story.
Gratitude and honesty can live in the same heart.

For those of us who love Jesus and love our country, maybe the most faithful thing we can do is tell the whole truth — not to tear anything down, but to build something better. Love of country and love of truth aren’t enemies. They belong together.

Widening the Table

Every year around this time, I think about that student in Sam’s Club.

I wish I could go back and say, “Yes. Let’s make greens.”
Not just because it would have been kind, but because it would have made the table more complete — a truer reflection of who was actually there.

Maybe that’s what God is inviting us to do this Thanksgiving: to widen the table.

To include more stories.
To listen longer.
To make room for the kind of honesty that brings healing.

Because Jesus never called us to protect tradition.
He called us to love our neighbor.

And sometimes loving our neighbor means listening to stories that make us uncomfortable — or making room for someone we once overlooked.

This year, when I set the table, I’ll still make the rolls, the stuffing, and my mom’s special sweet potatoes. But I’ll also make greens, remembering the ones I once said no to. I’ll make space for them — and for the story they represent.

Because gratitude isn’t about guarding tradition.
It’s about widening the table until everyone has a seat.

“Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.” — Romans 12:2

Sometimes, that renewal begins right at the table.