Forget all that stuff you heard or didn't hear in school about the how and why of Thanksgiving. Yes, it's important and controversial, both. History can be truly ugly. So can what's happening today. So right now, let's reduce the meaning of this celebration to how it is commonly celebrated in the US. We gather with families, whether the ones we are born into or the ones we create for ourselves, we feast as well as we can, relax as much as we can depending on who's there and how complicated our relationships are, and reflect on what in our lives we are grateful for, even if just a parade to keep the kids entertained while the rest of us try to sleep late, or get up early to start cooking. We can bring all the controversy of the world in the door with us, from the energy used to get us there, to the food choices, meat or plant sources and how they are raised, to various word views and political opinions and all the conflicting sides we can support or not.
BUT...
For now, this moment, let's just not do all that. Whoever you are with, whatever else you are doing in your lives, lets just look around and find some thing we are grateful for. You're still breathing - is that one? The planet is still spinning, the atmosphere mostly still breathable, most spots on the globe still have sunsets and sunrises, though they may be delayed a few months now. It is closing in on the next solstice after all. The pendulum swings both ways.
There is an incredible universe out there which we are learning more about every day, and now have the technology to see photos representing various wavelengths showing us what these other places and things look like, how they move, what we expect did and will happen with them way beyond our short lifetimes, things our ancestors never imagined. Are you thankful for the awe that follows those revelations? For knowing while you are such a tiny piece of that universe, you are still a piece of something so vast, magnificent, and incomprehensible?
You saw a smile recently, maybe in this place where you are reading this, maybe in the next room, maybe while waiting in a line, maybe from ones you love dearly. Are you thankful for those, and for being able to give smiles back to others who, by the way, always need them as much as you do?
You gave and received a kind word recently, held out a hand to somebody or took theirs, shared a laugh, watched a sunrise or sunset, saw a child having fun, heard a baby's laugh. Are you thankful for all those things? And thankful that you are capable of being thankful for them?
At some time you loved somebody. At some time you've been loved. It may have even been an animal more than a person. Whether those are now or earlier, whether those loved ones are still in your lives or just in your memories, and some are still only in your hopes, are you thankful for love?
Whatever kind or style it is, somewhere there is music in the world that touches you, speaks to you, cries for or with you, bowls you over weeping for its beauty. Perhaps instead it is a visual kind of beauty evoking a response. Or even something completely different, like the way numbers work, or how a building comes together. Do those make you feel thankful?
Do you still have memories? Hopes? Dreams? Goals? Thoughts? Feelings? Is blood still pulsing through your vessels? Can you still read this or have somebody to read it to you? Can you still be thankful for any of this?
Then you still have something to be thankful for. Appreciate it. Give thanks today, and any other day you're still thankful for something.
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What, you thought this was about how rich you are and how important the world finds you? Maybe we should have a little chat.
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