It seems quite funny to me that in all these years of sharing my thoughts randomly with those of you in the digi-verse, apparently, I have never paused to converse with you about Thanksgiving.  Oh yes, I often express ideas about gratitude and blessing, but I have not paused to reflect on the one day that we as a people set aside each year to remind us, well, to do just that.  I would like to think that that omission is because an attitude of gratitude has been a dominant theme in my life for years.

But maybe not.  Thanksgiving, as it was taught to me (and to most of us) as a child, has become an increasingly problematic feast day.  With my eyes opened wider, I can no longer celebrate the so-called first meal of gratitude featuring grateful Pilgrims and happy indigenous peoples.  That mythology has been washed away with as many remnants of my education in the myth of American exceptionalism as I have been able to relinquish.

Understanding a slightly more accurate history of this day, however, does not eliminate the beauty – and the necessity — of taking time each year to culturally remind us of the importance of being thankful.  And so this year, as I have participated with friends in a 30-Day Gratitude Challenge (there are many flavors of this challenge, sponsored by many wonderful organizations), it has felt good to get my gratitude engine running again.  Gratitude offered through the lens of truth is, for me, even more powerful, and a better conductor of the love encapsulated in that act of gratitude, carrying it further into the world around us.

One of the most powerful learnings from my time at Kenyon College’s Beyond Walls program was one about gratitude.  During morning worship, the Rabbi sharing worship duties that day taught us about the Jewish practice of saying 100 daily brachot, or blessings.  The exact practice varies among the different ways of living into Judaism, but the importance of being thankful remains, whether it is mandatory that you say the 100 daily blessings or just an invitation.  Honestly, it has been hard enough for me to clearly formulate one clear moment of gratitude for 30 days, let alone to offer thanks 100 times a day, but I am drawn to the idea of saying a blessing for everything in my life, all day long — for the air I breath, for the water I drink, for the opportunities and the blessings that make up each and every day of my life, no matter how difficult that day.

And so, this Thanksgiving, as I write these words, I am pledging to myself (and apparently to you), to do what I can to let the rivers of gratitude flow.  I will fail, I am sure, but I am going to focus on the “little” gratitudes each day.  Maybe I will make it to 100 once in awhile.  Maybe not.  But I do know this, I am deeply grateful for each and everyone of you, and the blessing that you have been in my life.

“Look upon your life as a gift,” writes Br. David Vryhoff of the Society of St. John the Evangelist.  There is no better prayer for this day, or any other day.  Shalom, my friends.  Peace, and the wholeness that comes with a life lived in gratitude, be unto you.