Being the Future: creativefacilitating.com Blog

Giving Thanks

November 26th, 2009

As with many people, I woke up today thinking about Thanksgiving and giving thanks. I was thinking that here in Arlington, Virginia and with people I know directly that first Thanksgiving is very remote. The people who gave thanks at that time are not people I can recognize as my forbears. My ancestors from their several strains all arrived long after that, looking for a land of bounty and freedom.

Gratitude for bounty is certainly a point of resonance, and something that I feel deeply. The bounty that my family experiences is beyond the imagining of those first celebrants. Let us hope that our gratitude combines with our wishes for sufficiency for people struggling everywhere and our meager efforts to lend a hand, creating a wave that will be felt elsewhere.

I also think of the peril of earlier times. Our perils today are different, but no less real. As I think of the people who will be gathered today for Thanksgiving and of other loved ones who will not be with us in person, I am grateful beyond measure for the community that supports me and the people dear to me through our own perils.

In the background I am listening to Jay Winter Nightwolf, a native American, and his radio program. He carries the message of the beauty of many of the native ways, and also the message that many native Americans are far from experiencing bounty and live in real peril. Awareness is the first step to action.

I am feeling full to the brim with love and connectedness and support. I can reach out in many directions and find people about whom I care deeply and who care about me. Letting our sense of abundance and love flow from us to the people we touch is no doubt the greatest gift we can give and our greatest expression of thanks.

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