Thank You on Thanksgiving Day

Thank you for the birds that return to my feeders.

Thank you for the cry of the geese in formation, flying south.

Thank you for my family, my dear husband, my son, my sister who calls me on the way home from work in faraway Virginia, for the football fanatics and the artists, the cruise enthusiasts.  For sending hearts and kissy-face emojis, because we are hundreds of miles apart.

Thank for for bringing Taylor back from the brink of death.

For Mango, the new family wonder-dog.

For everyone who has loved and supported me in a difficult year of changes.

Thank you for Millet, Matisse, the graffiti artists who have wowed the brick walls in my neighborhood.

Thank you for the memory of laughter with absent loved ones.

Thank you for warmth.  For bread.  For water.  For clean lettuce and new books.

For Mr. Rogers and Rilke.  For friendship and yoga.  For all that I can’t even remember at this moment, but which I will never take for granted.

And for this view, above, that I can have each afternoon on my walk in the park near my home — a park that Frederick Law Olmsted designed as a place where people with every kind of story and condition can find silence and come home to themselves.  The rich, the poor, the barely employed, young parents, elderly citizens, Christians, Jews, Muslims and atheists, radicals and conservatives, from every corner of the earth.

Somehow, despite so much that needs mending in this world, I draw hope from everyone I know who is willing to risk a creative act — a kindness, a gesture of empathy, a practice of patience, a poem, a knitted baby blanket, a healthier life plan.

One stitch at a time, one word at a time, one conversation or walk — only in this way can we hope to  advance in our collective consciousness, continue to grow and to reach corners of our common life where hope hasn’t perished..

A big thank you to the young people I know.  May you prosper.  May you be well.  May you be mindful of all that we hope and pray for you.

Amen.