We Can Do Better By Next Thanksgiving

I know all of you are thankful today, after all it is Thanksgiving. This purely American holiday is something we do not share with anyone else. In our very shrinking world that is so unusual. We have adopted other counties holidays like cinco de Mayo or St. Patrick’s day, but somehow other places have not taken up our Thanksgiving day, (except Canadians who celebrate on a different day and Germans who have a harvest festival and a few other which are mostly about the end of the growing season.)

I remember when we lived in London our English friends would ask us what Thanksgiving was about. They did not like my answer of America being thankful to have gotten out of England and survived. They easily could have thrown back that the indigenous people who helped us survive were none to happy when we took everything from them and drove them off their land. I wonder how much giving thanks is being done in indigenous communities.

In that so American way we have papered over the pilgrim/Indian situation and have turned Thanksgiving inward to be about what we personally are thankful for…our families, or at least the one we like and still talk to who agree with our politics, our health if it is good or the fact you are still alive if it is not good, the fact we have places to live and clean water and food, if you have all those things.

Although Thanksgiving is a beloved holiday we need to be thankful daily and work to make the world one in which everyone has something to be thankful for.

Today I was thankful that we had fun playing 3 generation Mah Jongg. That dinner all came out on time and we enjoyed by everyone. That Russ and Carter went to the attic and got most of the Christmas out without a request from me. That my mother is living in Durham and enjoying it. That we all have interesting and fulfilling work that has sustained us well this year.

There is much I hope for, world peace, to be beauty pageant contestant about it. A cleaner and more thoughtful environment as well as more cooperation between all peoples, stop shooting each other and a return to decency, kindness and honesty as just a baseline for being human would also be nice. I think we need to not settle for just being thankful for the status quo, (because the status quo looks nothing like my childhood), but to push a little harder for things to actually be better.

I kind of feel like it is no wonder other countries don’t take up American Thanksgiving. We have not set the best example lately. Let’s hope that we can do better next year. You have a whole year, start now.