Tag Archives: holidays

Gratitude amid the mess

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I am grateful for today, for every day really. Yet today is a day set aside to give thanks and, as one is able or in the mood, to celebrate these gifts in the company of family and friends.

This week in the United States has seen the tragic and bloody consequences of violence, the power of the gun lobby, and the consequences of division and hateful rhetoric. It sets an odd context for giving thanks.

This month began with elections that mirrored the polarization and division in our land. Sadly too it seemed that even the Bishops conference was not immune.

Wars continue amid our global family in Ukraine, Ethiopia, and far too many other countries. As we speak families are on the march through the dangerous Darien Gap while others have finally safely reached our borders to seek asylum, only to be turned away.

Our human family is in the midst of a mess. And Earth our common home is caught up in it all too.

And it is in this context that we are to give thanks?

Yes!

Thanks for the gift of life and love.

Thanks for the possibilities and opportunities to turn things around for the common good.

Thanks that the sun rises and sets each and every day, most often with amazing artistic touches.

Thanks for the people in our lives and the air that we breathe and the creativity within our hearts and minds.

Thanks for all that is and was and will be, even if it is messy. Thanks that God is with us in the mess.

Thanks for companionship, family, friends and four legged friends.

Thanks for the gift of hope.

Today we celebrate and give thanks.

Tomorrow the work of making the world a better place continues.

Gratitude

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Things I find myself especially grateful for this Thanksgiving morning, in no particular order.

The gift of life itself … Think about it, we get to live and breathe and smell pumpkin pie baking in the oven and laugh with friends and family and maybe drive each other a little crazy and hopefully do something productive in the middle and love people and be loved and go to sleep and wake up and spend yet another day experiencing the gift of life.

I am grateful for community. My world has been rocked a bit lately, what with accompanying a dear friend on her cancer journey and then our motherhouse caught fire and I have been displaced ever since and then my dear friend died and we pulled together to give her an amazing send off (in a local parish since we cannot use our chapel due  to fire damage)  then too all the regular stuff of life and leadership in community. When I end my day looking back in prayer, I am filled with wonder at the ways community supports and challenges, comforts and empowers me to keep on going on and continuing to face the future together as peacemakers in gratitude and hope. Such gift.

I am grateful to family and friends, mostly far and some near, who I know love me and send good vibes of love and support and are there if I ever need them. More phone calls are coming soon I promise.

I am grateful for our system of government, for checks and balances and ways to participate in democracy. I am grateful for the model and witness of nonviolent peacemakers like Dorothy Day and Oscar Romero and Martin Luther King and Thomas Merton and my Sisters of St Joseph of Peace and my mother Eileen and countless others. They faced evil and oppression head on and countered it with love in action and solidarity with an eye toward the common good and those Jesus loved so well. They started walking the path in their time and our world is a better place for it.  In these dark days I am grateful for their memory and for those who I trust will walk the path with me in our time.

I am grateful for creativity and intellect, for curiosity and compassion, for a passion for  peace through Justice, for God’s sustaining love, for laughter and sadness  and everything in between.

Peace my friends and happy Thanksgiving.