Welcome to Thursday Doors! This is a weekly challenge for people who love doors and architecture to come together to admire and share their favorite door photos, drawings, or other images or stories from around the world. If you’d like to join us, simply create your own Thursday Doors post each (or any) week and then share a link to your post in the comments below, anytime between 12:01 am Thursday morning and Saturday noon (North American eastern time). If you like, you can add our badge to your post.
This post originally ran in 2019, when Norm was still in charge. Today is Thanksgiving here in the United States and I will be away from my computer for significant portions of the day. I will get to your comments and to the posts of the participants, but I will be late.
Somehow, I knew that with Thanksgiving always being celebrated on a Thursday, that my choice for Thursday Doors was going to be thankful. I knew it and yet, I couldn’t quite figure it out. Then, on Sunday morning, it hit me. Well, it was more of a she, and she didn’t hit me, she impressed me. I read Natalie’s beautiful post where she featured some of the final blooming flowers from her garden. She also talked about bringing flowers into her greenhouse so she would have flowers to view and tend to during the winter. That reminded me of the hymn mentioned in the title and that made me think of St. John’s Episcopal Church.
We were members of this church for a few years. The Anglican Church didn’t recognize Thanksgiving as a holy/holiday, but Father Peet liked to connect the dots between giving thanks, the things we had to be thankful for and He from whom those blessings flow. I need to be careful that I don’t get tangled up in another hymn. Anyway, Father Peet held a service in which we could bring the bread we were serving for Thanksgiving dinner and have it blessed.
We would place our bread in a large basket when we entered the church. The servers would bring the basket to the altar when they brought up the gifts of bread and wine, and Father Peet would bless the bread. The basket would contain everything from homemade loaves, to store-bought bread, to coffee cakes and desert breads and once included a tube of Poppin’ Fresh Crescent rolls – who doesn’t love those?
We were members of this church during a somewhat challenging period for the building. You may not be able to tell, but the siding on the buildings is vinyl. In the mid-1980s, both the church and the rectory had to be repaired and painted, and the congregation wanted to expand the community center. There wasn’t enough money to do all that work. As if often the case in small congregations, there wasn’t really enough money to do any of that work. The building committee recommended starting a fundraising campaign in order to raise money over a two-year period. To keep the contributions in an acceptable range, the decision was made to cover the buildings in vinyl siding, but to use period-specific siding and trim on the church and the rectory. The buildings look good, but the experience illustrates how hard it is to maintain these buildings.
Happy Thanksgiving to the door followers in the United States. If you folks in other countries want to share in the traditions of this day, I’d recommending going straight for a slice of pie, topped with a generous amount of whipped cream.
If you are in a hurry and don’t wish to scroll through the comments, click to Jump to the comment form.
All five of my current books are now available in audio book form thanks to Amazon KDP’s Virtual Voice process. The voice is AI generated, but I can honestly say, it’s pretty darn good. The audio books are reasonably priced (all below $7 US) and, if you already own the Kindle version and want to add an audio version, you can do that for $1.99. There is a five-minute sample on the book page for each book. If you’re interested, click on any of the Dreamer’s Alliance book links below the image or on the link below for my latest book.
No Facilities 
Add your thoughts or join the discussion. One relevant link is OK, more require moderation.