So many people are already off to visit family and friends for their Thanksgiving feasts. Wednesday is the busiest travel day and my hat is off to those of you who will fly, drive, train or bus it to be part of a Thanksgiving meal.
For me, Thanksgiving is the ultimate stay at home meal. And for this I give thanks! This year I am especially grateful to be close to home and cooking the meal for others brings me a sense of normalcy and calm in a year that has been full of tumult and turmoil for so many.
We will miss having Ben’s father and his partner around the table as he is still in the hospital but we will bring a care package of turkey and the fixin’s to his father’s partner. Ben’s dad isn’t ready to eat real food.
And yet we have so much to be thankful for. For love and hope and faith and community. That brings a special gift. My heart always hurts at Thanksgiving for those who don’t have those things. Well in truth my heart hurts all the time for those who are too cold and callous to be open to love and loving others or for those that think they don’t need a community to be a part of. The stoic ones who think that just their friends is enough or just their spouse is enough.
I know everyone is different. But the comfort of a community –all who may not be your friends but share a common concern, a common bond that transcends family creates reverberation of love and hope that reach far beyond imagination. Those vibrations change lives and change hearts. The caring vibrations of a caring community transform the world. Those vibrations actually lift people from the depths of despair and can transform someone who dwells in the depths of depression into a person who pulls herself or himself out back into the light of day.
We all need hope. Hope is the fuel for life and living. Hope in a future brighter than where we live now keeps our juices flowing. Hope in humanity even in the face of the world’s tragedies and evils renews our human spirit. Even Anne Frank in the face of the depravity and evil of the Nazi’s wrote in her diary,
“It’s really a wonder that I haven’t dropped all my ideals, because they seem so absurd and impossible to carry out. Yet I keep them, because in spite of everything, I still believe that people are really good at heart.”
“How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world.”
-Anne Frank
This Thanksgiving I am grateful for several communities that I am a part of and the way in which they circle the wagons of prayer and caring and hope for me and my loved ones. And yes, like Anne Frank I still believe in people’s goodness and the power of that goodness and caring to transform our world. This Thanksgiving let’s begin the transformation with those we love and build sacred communities that heal and change our world. This will be the real Thanksgiving feast.
Happy Thanksgiving.