Why Do We Eat So Much on Thanksgiving?

BY DAVID O’BRIEN

Have you ever noticed that we spend much of our lives pursuing some sort of goal or dream?

When we are younger, we long to be like our older brother or sister, or the older kids in school. We can’t wait until we make it to 8th grade, senior year or make the varsity team.

Later we hope to get into college, land that first job, prove ourselves at work, get our first new car, apartment, house, find that special guy or girl, and finally get married and have children.

As the years go by, our dreams shift. We work to give our kids the best we can, help them succeed and set them up for a better life than we had.

For ourselves, we strive to do well in our careers, maybe find that dream home, be respected by our peers, set ourselves up for retirement and stay relatively healthy.

Some of these goals are realized, some are not.

But even when we achieve them, as great as they are, there seems to be a certain hollowness to them. We ask: "Is that it? Is there nothing more?"

We may spend years pursuing a goal but once we achieve it, we want more. We don’t just plop down on our Lazyboy in the living room and spend the rest of lives reveling in that moment when we made the honor roll in 11th grade.

It is as if we are a bag of walking desires. We are never satisfied.

In all of creation we are unique in this way. I’m never met a dog that wanted to be a cow or a tree that longed to be a butterfly.

But every person I’ve ever known, including myself, wants to be more, know more, do more and have more. What is happening here? Is there flaw in the design of humanity?

Think about what happens every year at Thanksgiving. We load up our plates as if we are creating a model of Mt. Everest . Then we proceed to shovel the equivalent of four full meals down our gullet. The clothes we dressed in that morning begin to constrict around our waists but we still go back for that last piece of turkey and just a little more dressing, please.

Finally, at the brink of a gastronomical catastrophe, we waddle away from the table uttering a solemn oath: "I will never eat again."

But somehow, just one football game and a nap later, we are back in the refrigerator looking for that piece of pie.

We are never permanently satisfied. We always want more.

The marketers on Madison Avenue realize this about us and gear all their advertising to prey upon our unremitting sense of dissatisfaction-try this, buy that, upgrade, you deserve it, isn’t it time, act now.

So we buy, upgrade and indulge but those things don’t satisfy either. What is our problem?

Many preachers, spiritual writers and church people see this unrelenting human desire for more as the source of much of our sin. They direct us to suppress our desires and reign in that urge for more.

St. Augustine disagrees. He says that God places within us this insatiable desire so that eventually we will find our way to Him. In other words, when we get tired of seeking satisfaction and placing our hopes in finite, passing things, eventually we will turn to the Lord, who alone can totally fill our hunger for more and who never is used up.

With God, there is always more and it is always better.

We are made to long for more than this world can ever offer because we are built for eternity. Our souls are hardwired for the infinite goodness that is God. How could anything-any goal, any accomplishment, any success, any material possession, any relationship- ever satisfy a heart that yearns for communion with the creator of all that is? No wonder we are never fulfilled in this life.

So don’t kill that recklessness within you. Don’t squelch that desire for the best, the most, the ultimate that burns in your gut. That is God’s Spirit driving you to Him, the only one who can really meet our every need and satisfy our every desire.

About David O’Brien David O’Brien is the Associate Director of Religious Education for Lay Ministry for the Archdiocese of Mobile. His column, Everyday Faith, appears regularly in the archdiocesan newspaper, the Catholic Week. Email David at dobrien@mobilearchdiocese.org.