By Allen Hamrick
Thanksgiving Day is traditionally the day we give thanks for the things we have and for bloated stomachs when the last taste of turkey and ham are gone for another year. But keep in mind it’s not always about the food. The story of Thanksgiving has been handed down through the generations of families and has changed over the years to represent the times we live in. The ideal of Thanksgiving has been dressed down like the turkeys we eat.
In the past, people relied more on family and neighbors for survival. Turkeys had to be hunted and bagged by the best hunters, not fought over in Kroger coolers loaded with turkeys frozen so hard they take days to thaw. It was a time when a biscuit and gravy was enough because Thanksgiving was more about being thankful for the things that matter the most – windows of opportunity that open and close from the time we are born to the time we die and the life we have while those windows are open is what we should be thankful for. Blessings are not based on the amount of wealth we accumulate but the wealth that no value can be placed on.
When society erodes, simple things like home, family, and spiritual wellness take second place to power and excess. This creates a type of crisis that ultimately changes our way of thinking to believe the only thing to be thankful for is what we have accumulated no matter how it was gained. The ultimate measure of the life we have, while we have it, is a place of reprieve and respite that we retreat to when people, the job or life fail us. It is the incalculable value of the human spirit capable of love and charity. It is the echoes and shadows, the rise and setting of a day, the very breath we breathe, the self-worth, the sieges of hope that were never lost – those are what we truly need to be thankful for.
When the quiet space where the lengthening shadows of our life draw closer to our final destination, the echoes of power that are nothing but whispers in a once thought institution or the millions gathered will matter anything beyond the grave but what was left behind: hope, charity, love, family and home. Keep these in remembrance when you enjoy the bounty that is set before you. Happy Thanksgiving!
