“In normal life we hardly realize how much more we receive than we give, and life cannot be rich without such gratitude. It is so easy to overestimate the importance of our own achievements compared with what we owe to the help of others.”
― Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Letters and Papers from Prison
Thanksgiving 2020. Not a year that we want to really celebrate, is it?
There were lots of tough days this past year for many people and there are certain more to come in the next few months.
But Thanksgiving, perhaps more so for this year, is a day of pause. Today, we get to take a brief moment to reflect on our past and present because that is where gratitude and love reside. Our fears and worries for a harsh near-future are temporarily set aside and we express our thanks for those folks who have made our lives possible, who have lifted us up, who have enriched our world.
This year we must make sure to include those often overlooked doctors, nurses, and all other healthcare workers. They are doing tough and remarkable work right now while putting their own health at risk every day. They are being asked to give so much right now and deserve our thanks and appreciation.
I have a long list of other folks that I could list here. My life, like all others, is the result of the assistance, guidance, encouragement, and love given to me by others.
Without these people and the many things they have given me, my life would no doubt be like an empty and dark room without windows. With them, it is a bright and airy room filled with windows that open to new and wondrous landscapes. The gratitude I feel now in the present moment for what they provided me in the past gives me greater hope for the future.
And maybe that’s the lesson of thanksgiving, that by recognizing our gratitude and debt for what others have given us up to now we can then see that we have the ability to get through anything the future holds for us.
And that’s saying a lot.
Have a Good and Hopeful Thanksgiving.
Another Thanksgiving and it might seem that it would be hard to find much to be thankful for in this turbulent world with its endless cornucopia of anger, hatred, intolerance, injustice and inequality set out for our consumption each day. With a diet of so many negatives it would be easy to forget that one simple thing that truly feeds and sustains us– gratitude.
Redtree Times 