"Thanks-Giving"

Thanksgiving week: busy, hectic, busy, everyone posting "what I'm thankful for facebook posts", busy, starving yourself, and finally the big meal pay off. We are supposed to remember what we are thankful for tomorrow, then post-meal shopping planning around the kitchen table for the ladies and hands in your pants, one-leg-up farting, and football for the guys. Awe, holidays in America.

What if Thanksgiving were a "fasting day" and Black-Friday a day of ZERO shopping, a "black-out" if you will? Would we feel somber? Joyous? Indifferent? Would we celebrate at all? Would time spent away from what we see as convenience truly make us more thankful?

I had one of those "wow my life is changed" days and became beyond thankful for what I have about 6 years ago. I was reading a women's magazine article about a woman that "made the most of what she had." She was giving examples of the things she had done to make her home more appealing. She set her table with candles, got new dishes, polished the floors, made new curtains, etc...she was so proud of how beautiful her home looked afterward. Her excitement was contagious! As I was reading I was coming out of the "funk" I had been in. I remembered a rug I had in a closet, some place mats and curtains I had stuffed away for years. I remembered my grandmother's china and decided to get it all out. I continued reading feeling quite pleased I had crept out of my "blues." As I read I realized her candles had been made from broken crayons she dug out of neighbor's garbage cans. The china, 5 pieces all chipped and broken. The curtains were flour sacks from a factory in the area. The floor she polished was the bottom of a sewage run-off pipe. Her spirit was vivacious! She felt no sorrow, only luck at finding all these beautiful things! Her children came home to the most beautiful, inviting home in the 3rd world slum they lived in. Here I was grabbing a damn $200 area rug out of my closet!

I was immediately yanked back to my place in the world. Groaning, moping, and whining about my "home!" How dare I! My tiny house would be a mansion to this woman! Remember if you are among the poorest of Americans, you are still richer than about 90% of the entire world!

While we all feast tomorrow and throw away our scraps, stop for just a moment! Think about others on the planet with us! We live in a bubble here in America. We are blissfully ignorant of the struggles faced by our fellow humans. In keeping with the "thanksgiving posts" on facebook. I am most thankful for having a world view. While I can save my children with a bottle of gatorade and 2 tylenol, another mother just like me is holding her baby while their last breath escapes them. While our plates will be bountiful tomorrow, a mother, just like me, will give all the food she has on her plate, a metaphorical plate because a plate is money for food not spent, to her children. Enjoy your feasts tomorrow, your plate could feed a family for a week!