One of the things I know for sure is that most people don’t feel appreciated, particularly in our families. We feel taken for granted. We feel we give A LOT and the acknowledgment of what we give is a sliver compared to all we’ve given.
Maybe that’s not true of everyone everywhere, but it sure is true as a generality.
Thanksgiving is a time, THE time, to turn this around.
Let’s begin with the “I’m grateful for...” talk. Gratitude, being grateful, has to do you with you and someone else. When we’re grateful, we’re not only grateful for something—being alive!—but we’re grateful TO someone. Our parents, let’s say. Being grateful means saying thank you to someone, somewhere, somehow, someone who’s probably longing to hear those words.
What better time and place for that than the Thanksgiving table!
What a lovely, life-giving, soul-enriching thing it would be if we each thanked each person at the table for something specific and meaningful.
But what if there are things you’re grateful for but there’s no one to thank? Like the beautiful blue, blue sky. Now that’s where belief in God comes in handy. You thank God! But if you don’t believe in God, and there’s no one you can thank, then, okay, you have a special dispensation to say, “And I’d like to say how much I appreciate/enjoy/relish/am happy about the beautiful blue, blue sky.” Those are the words we use for things that don’t, in our opinion, have an origin or source.
I just want to preserve what’s special—unique, in fact—about the notion of being grateful (that there’s someone you can actually thank!) and that there are millions and millions of us, on this day of overeating, truly hungry to be thanked.
And thank YOU, dear reader, for being here, for supporting us, and for reading these words.
(HUGE apologies for not putting this out yesterday--Thanksgiving. We were way too distracted by the lovely family that WE give thanks for. We're sorry.)