If we look hard enough, we can find plenty of rough spots in our lives.
And if we look a little more, we can find others with just as tough a lot and maybe tougher.
Shunted off to deep background status is this thing called being thankful.
Today, Thanksgiving Day, we need to bring that virtue out of the closet and put in the bright light of our Thanksgiving Day table.
We know that there is plenty of misery in the world around us and millions of people doing without on this day. Those of us who can should take time to service those we know who are less fortunate.
And just as importantly, we need to take time to acknowledge where we are compared to past generations and much of the world today.
Surely most of us are better off than the Pilgrims and Indians who shared the first Thanksgving meal. Surely most of us are better off than the many people in our area who are struggling this day to put a good meal on the table. And in much of the world where hunger is a daily reality, today's Thanskgiving feast would be the food for a month.
There is another form of thanks to pay attention to on this day. If you have family and friends and a partner you can trust and treasure, be thankful. We live in a time when families are fractured by circumstances in a world growing more complex and stressful by the minute.
Be thankful for precious moments that don't come with an electronic prompt or a manufactured dialogue. Years from now, those are the moments that will be the most memorable and valuable. And when today is over, hold onto that attitude of thankfulness until next Thanksgiving, then renew it again.
