by Jeremy Frye
When we live at human scale, we slow down enough to notice the faces in front of us.
For as long as I can remember, my favorite holiday has always been Thanksgiving. My earliest holiday memories are not of being gathered around a tree or a birthday cake but a table. In my family, Thanksgiving was the one holiday whose sole focus was presence; being together. No gifts, no spectacle, no performance—just the simple act of gathering around a table, remembering that we belonged to one another, and giving thanks for the gift of being alive together. Whatever else the world demanded of us, Thanksgiving felt like a return to the human scale. A day made up of shared food, shared conversation, and shared life.
In my adulthood, Thanksgiving continues to be the holiday that I cherish the most. It has become a day when friends gather as family. People who might otherwise be alone, find a place at our table. And we continue to give thanks for the gifts that we have received, namely, each other.
I understand that the way Thanksgiving is often remembered in our cultural imagination—particularly the Pilgrim story—is far more complicated, and in many ways, damaging. The myth can obscure the real history of colonial violence and the ongoing grief of Indigenous peoples. Yet it is possible, and even necessary, to tell the truth about that history while still receiving the feast itself as a gift. Because the holiday we now celebrate here in the United States was not actually founded on the Pilgrim myth, but on a longing for healing.
In 1863, in the midst of civil war, Abraham Lincoln proclaimed a national day of Thanksgiving—not as a celebration of triumph, but as a call to communal tenderness and mercy. He invited the nation to remember “those who have become widows, orphans, mourners, or sufferers,” and to allow gratitude to soften our grief. Thanksgiving, as a national holiday, was born not out of conquest but out of the need for healing, humility, and shared humanity.
When I look at Thanksgiving through that frame, I recognize its deep kinship with Sukkot, the biblical feast in which the people dwelt in temporary shelters to remember that life itself is gift. Both feasts remind us that we are not self-made. That we are held. That our flourishing depends on shared life, shared resources, shared joy. Both return us to a scale where the holy can be encountered: the scale of table, shelter, neighbor, friend.
The Feast of Booths—Sukkot—was a celebration of God’s provision. For seven days, the people of Israel left their permanent homes and lived in temporary shelters, reminding themselves that they were once wanderers and that all they had came from the gracious hand of God. It was a time of rejoicing, of shared meals and laughter, of remembering that life is a gift, not something we possess.
Sukkot points us to something we easily forget: God meets us at the human scale
Sukkot points us to something we easily forget: God meets us at the human scale. Not in grandeur or spectacle, but in small, ordinary places. The gospel was never meant to be an abstract theory or a program managed by distant systems. It is meant to be lived in bodies and neighborhoods, around tables and in conversations, in the rhythms of ordinary days.
We live in a world that glorifies what is big—big ideas, big platforms, big solutions. But the problem with “big” is that it often loses touch with what is truly human. Large-scale efforts can be impressive, but they can also become impersonal, disconnected from the simple act of knowing and caring for one another.
Wendell Berry reminds us that the real work of planet-saving will be small, humble, and humbling, and (insofar as it involves love) it will be joyous and kind and done together. Soul friendship is exactly that kind of work. It is small, humble, and deeply human. It doesn’t fix everything, but it creates ripples of healing and hope that grow in ways we cannot measure.
When we live at human scale, we slow down enough to notice the faces in front of us. We share meals, plant gardens, tell stories, and pray together. We stop trying to control outcomes and instead tend what has been entrusted to us—the relationships and places within our reach. We begin to see that loving the few people God has given us is not less meaningful than trying to change the whole world. In fact, it might be the only way the world truly changes.
The Feast of Booths was a reminder that the people of God were always dependent—on God, on one another, on the land. To dwell in temporary shelters was to remember vulnerability, to be reacquainted with the truth that we are held by grace, not control. It was a practice of grounding—a way of returning to what is essential: shared life, mutual care, and the holy that gathers around tables and in circles of belonging.
In our own time, living the gospel at a human scale offers a similar invitation. Not toward achievement or grandeur, but toward presence. It might look like choosing to stay close to your people rather than chasing the next ambition. It might mean tending to your block, your neighborhood, your ordinary corner of the world—offering a meal, a listening ear, or even just silence shared with someone who needs it.
To live this way is not to abandon the pain or complexity of the larger world—it is to face it honestly, and still choose love. To say: I will begin with what I’ve been given. I will tend what is mine to tend. I will not turn away from suffering, but I will not wait for a perfect solution before I offer what I can.
So, perhaps this week, you might begin with gratitude. Not the kind that glosses over grief, but the kind that makes space for both joy and sorrow. Reflect on the gifts hidden in your daily life. Notice who has sat at your table, or who might need an invitation. Consider what small act of care might carry the weight of healing.
Because this is how we mend the world—not in sweeping gestures, but in the quiet practice of faithfulness. One moment. One neighbor. One shared loaf at a time.
Perhaps this is why I have always loved Thanksgiving. Like the Feast of Booths, it invites us back to what is most basic and most true: we are dependent creatures, held by grace, sustained by one another. At its best, Thanksgiving is not a performance of abundance, but a remembering of dependence. It is a feast lived at human scale—a table around which we pause, notice who is here, and give thanks for the gift of belonging. We do not need to romanticize its history to receive its invitation. We simply practice the shared life it calls us to: gathering, blessing, offering, and being present. In doing so, we live the gospel in the only place it can truly take flesh—in the small, ordinary spaces of our lives.
Because the kingdom of God often comes not in dramatic displays of power, but in small, unnoticed acts of love that grow quietly, like seeds in the soil.