Thanksgiving Day 2021: What I'm Thankful For

 

Photo courtesy of Photo by Mike Licht's  Flickr page - First Fun Thanksgiving, after J.L.G. Ferris: https://www.flickr.com/photos/notionscapital/3062587135/in/photolist-5ECyst-5EzJoE-pVy3jb-7fpxz3-qeFTma-qKb5y-5EzLTh-8t2HcA-7zsVzq-4VHY6u-7zpaDD-8WafKb-du7kcg-94jgy5-7iaerA-bDGB8q-7gdJdk-5EvrxZ-duwNaQ-pm6cSN-ducUDh-aLNyAr-7ht9zD-7ht9Xa-7zpa6v-ducVrb-ducV2j-hVfhTm-5EvqUr-7htaaT-5EVqpB-atE2SX-hTNSE4-5EWeaq-b6wAht-dvD2CZ-kT8u2c-8W85un-dZVCSd-72vahj-qoZEZF-5EH4Nm-5Evw3k-dZVCCq-dkMSGo-8WmYaF-dZPVCv-dkMQxe-dkMzWc-t8GEw

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Earlier today, I published several posts that were all about Thanksgiving and the history of this holiday. Mostly, it was negative, because if we are to take a real, objective look at this holiday and the history behind it, we find that it is mostly negative. Years ago during a Pow Wow of local Lenni Lenape, I asked a woman there if she celebrated Thanksgiving, and she instantly went from smiling to serious, and clearly and unequivocally said no. The details of the conversation escape me, and we did not discuss it for very long. But I remember how serious she got, and that she was emphatic on her views, and that Thanksgiving was nothing to celebrate from her perspective.

For a while, I was considering trying to stop celebrating Thanksgiving myself. However, it is one of the rare holidays when family and/or friends all get together and, for once in this country, try to appreciate what we have, instead of focusing exclusively on what we want to obtain. Of course, even on that end, our focus seems to be entirely too short, because this holiday, which we are supposed to celebrate in the spirit of thankfulness, of gratitude for all that we have been blessed with, is immediately followed up by Black Friday, which just may be the day annual day where we see the worst in people, and the focus is exclusively on selfishness, on greed, on desire to obtain things that we do not need, and which too often gets accompanied by violence in the process. 

However, it seems to me that perhaps we should not throw out the baby with the bathwater. Western society in general, and American society in particular, tends to gloss over, at best, all that we should be appreciative of. That feels true, even though we probably have the most to be thankful for. When you watch the news over the years and decades, it is hard to miss tragic news stories all around the world. There is obvious and inescapable instability in so many places all around the globe. We here in our rather privileged western societies (not a term used in geographical terms) have escaped most of that. Indeed, we live in affluent societies, where stability largely prevails. We may have some differences, politically, but most of us can surely agree that we have the rather unique privilege, historically speaking, of enjoying stability and even relative predictability on a day-to-day basis. We enjoy comforts that monarchs and emperors over the centuries would have killed - possibly quite literally - to enjoy. That includes a roof over our heads for a vast majority of us, including the ability to modulate how warm or cool it is. There is no shortage of methods for us to remain entertained, from music to movies to television shows to online videos to books, and the internet has made most of these things available to us faster than ever before. Indeed, most of us in the West possess devices which, almost literally, brings us the world right at our fingertips, if we want it. Unfortunately,however, most of us use these devices for other, often times more selfish and narrow-minded, purposes.

So while I have admittedly not stopped celebrating Thanksgiving - at least not yet - I do believe that it should serve it's most positive function, at the very least. We should be mindful of all that we are thankful of. Frankly, we should be mindful of this far more often, probably on an everyday basis. The world would likely be a brighter, far less dark and unwelcoming place, if we did this in reality. So while I recognize the problems with this holiday, it seems important also not to discourage the spirit of thankfulness that inspired it. 

And in that spirit, this year it seemed important to mention what I am thankful for. As always, I am thankful for the relative health of my family and friends, and their presence in my life. This seems particularly true this year, as concerns for my father's health in particular have grown quite a bit. I visited him last week in a retirement home, and it was admittedly a shock. Like with many people, my image of my father from the old days of my childhood was that he seemed to symbolize masculine energy and strength. Seeing him as diminished and seemingly drained as he was, then, was a bit of a shock to me. 

Yet, he is still with us, for which I am thankful. My mom still visits him regularly, and in fact, she and I just spoke about her visits yesterday. Until recently, Thanksgiving was one holiday where the family would get together. Unfortunately, that is not so much the case now, as the family now is spread out over a relatively large span of geography, which has made getting together far more difficult. But I will share this holiday with my son, and with my girlfriend, for which I feel blessed. So I am thankful for that opportunity, and for all the other blessings with which my life has been graced.

Below, it seemed appropriate to add recent pictures. The top one is the school picture for this academic year of my son. Under that are the two pictures that I took of both of my parents, at my mom's request, during my two visits last week. They were actually from my second visit, which came on Tuesday.

Enjoy, and be blessed and remember what you are thankful for on this day.