Thanksgiving

I hate Christmas before Thanksgiving. Retailers start in September. But I think Thanksgiving is a wonderful celebration in its own right. Pilgrims and Indians. It started with people coming together to celebrate a bountiful harvest. They had nothing in common but the desire to feed their families in the winter. They had no common religion, heritage or government but they worked together and celebrated their success together. A special day to reflect on our harvest and to give thanks should be welcomed. I hate to see it become a milestone on the way to some bigger and better holiday. I know I am blessed with a healthy family, a warm home, a wonderful opportunity to provide for my family financially, good friends, and a lovely community. I leave you with a reflection on Thanksgiving by Howard Thurman.


A Litany of Thanksgiving

In Your presence, O God, we make our Sacrament of Thanksgiving.
We begin with the simple things of our days:
Fresh air to breathe,
Cool water to drink,
The taste of food,
The protection of houses and clothes,
The comforts of home.
For all these we make an act of Thanksgiving this day!

We bring to mind all the warmth of humankind that we have known:
Our mothers' arms,
The strength of our fathers,
The playmates of our childhood,
The wonderful stories brought to us from the lives of many who talked of days gone by when fairies and giants and diverse kinds of magic held sway;
The tears we have shed, the tears we have seen;
The excitement of laughter and the twinkle in the eye with its reminder that life is good.
For all these we make an act of Thanksgiving this day.

We finger one by one the messages of hope that await us at the crossroads:
The smile of approval from those who held in their
hands the reins of our security,
The tightening of the grip of a single handshake when we feared the step before us in the darkness,
The whisper in our heart when the temptation was fiercest and the claims of appetite were not to be denied,
The crucial word said, the simple sentence from an open page when our decision hung in the balance.

For all these we make an act of Thanksgiving this day.

We passed before us the mainsprings of our heritage:
The fruits of the labors of countless generations who lived before us, without whom our own lives would have no meaning,
The seers who saw visions and dreamed dreams;
The prophets who sensed a truth greater than the mind could grasp, and whose words could only find fulfillment in the years which they would never see,
The workers whose sweat has watered the trees, the leaves of which are for the healing of the nations,
The pilgrims who set their sails for lands beyond all horizons, whose courage made paths into new worlds and far-off places,
The savior whose blood was shed with the recklessness that only a dream could inspire and God could command.

For all these we make an act of Thanksgiving this day.

We linger over the meaning of our own life and commitment to which we give the loyalty of our heart and mind:
The little purposes in which we have shared with our loves, our desires, our gifts,
The restlessness which bottoms all we do with its stark insistence that we have never done our best, we have never reached for the highest,
The big hope that never quite deserts us, that we and our kind will study war no more, that love and tenderness and all the inner graces of Almighty affection will cover the life of the children of God as the waters cover the sea.

All these and more than mind can think and heart can feel, we make as our sacrament of Thanksgiving to Thee, Our Father, in humbleness of mind and simplicity of heart.

Privacy

I have watched the CMS Teachers- Face Book newscast in Charlotte with interest. On one hand, I understand the outrage. Some teachers are in trouble for things they have posted on their Face Book pages. One said she hated her students, said she taught in the ghetto, and various other comments were made that we don't like to hear from our teachers. I have not looked at the page content. What troubles me is that something someone expressed in what they thought to be a friendly forum was made very public. We all are viewed differently in the context of friends and family. People who know us well, allow us to vent without much recourse, or see what we say in any given situation on the larger stage of their experiences with us. They know when to dismiss us as cranky, ill, intoxicated or sarcastic. But any particular remark we make can be misconstrued or magnified by the wrong person or in the wrong place.

My Father always told me not to discuss business in public, not to drink more than two drinks in the company of co-workers, and never write a letter to someone in anger. He was warning me to be careful of public conduct and speech. But these days with e-mail and text messaging, phones that record video and still photos, and social networking blogs and web-sites, there is an every shrinking zone of privacy. We put ourselves out there for public consumption as soon as we wake up. These young teachers may have behaved and spoken completely inappropriately. It seems that they were naive and immature. But to be fired, have your career ruined and be publicly flogged for what you said, not in a public context like Don Imus, but on your social blog feels wrong.

People grow and change. Fortunately the opinions I held in my 20's are not set in stone. I fear that in our present world we are not allowed to make a public or private mistake or slip of tongue. Suddenly Orwell and Bradbury are very relevant again. So to all my Face Book Buddies, drop out of those groups. You don't know who is in them and they don't know you. And sadly, we can't take that chance anymore.