My Thoughts on the Eve of Thanksgiving

It is a tumultuous and troubling time in our country. The offshoots of war seem to touch every corner of our nation and of our minds. Racial inequities and financial struggles continue to impact far too many. There is antipathy between our political parties and an abiding mistrust of those in our midst predicated solely on religious beliefs. We seem forever to be one step away from the next grave problem. Calamity has become our bedfellow.

This week is Thanksgiving, a time when we search out the best in our own lives and express gratitude for the gifts bestowed upon us. But it is a difficult undertaking this year. When so many who are suffering come to our doorstep but are deemed unworthy of our compassion and our beneficence, it is that much harder to celebrate the joy in our personal experience.

When those who would dare to lead us, dare to lead us astray, when guns proliferate in anticipation of the worst in our fellow man, when education is lacking in so many in our population and opportunity is a word that attaches to far too few, when we have come to think so much less of others, how can we not think less of ourselves?

Do I give thanks this year? Can I ask that I hold my thanks in abeyance, that I wait until next week, or next month, or next year? Until a time when we are less angry, less hostile, less consumed with our own well being and more concerned with the welfare of others. More like what we want to be and less of what we are. When we are more encouraging, more enthusiastic, more energized and motivated not by our demons but by our higher selves.

If I have a wish for this Thanksgiving, it is that we take a good look at what we have done, are doing to our fellow man. And that we determine that tomorrow our first priority is that, for those whom we now treat with enmity, their next Thanksgiving should be better than this one. That would indeed be a worthy Thanksgiving tale.