Giving Thanks

It has become something of a tradition - to the extent that one can classify Facebook behavior as "traditional" - for many of my friends to post each day in November about something they are grateful for. Last year you could even use the alphabet as your guide, although with Thanksgiving on November 22, that would have been tougher this year. (I guess you could take out a few letters, such as X - x-rays, x-rated movies and xylophones being stipulated as Good Things without the need for their own special day.)

In my own rather jumbled up theology (Unitarian Universalism meets Al-Anon), gratitude is the most important spiritual practice. (I believe that prayers should always be either those of gratitude or asking for understanding and strength to handle difficult situations. To me, anything more specific is treating God like Santa Claus. But I digress.)

This year I wasn't mentally and emotionally organized enough to participate in the daily Facebook exercise, although I think it is a wonderful activity. But on this day of Thanksgiving, I do have many, many things (and people) to be thankful for - and recognize even more of them now then I did a few weeks ago.

First off, there are the people and things that are easily taken for granted, and shouldn't be: health, enough to eat (and drink), a warm and hospitable place to live, fabulous friends and a wonderful, wonderful family: great parents, siblings, in-laws, aunts, uncles, cousins and amazing nieces and nephews and great-nieces and great-nephews. These are the things that (thankfully!) don't change from year to year.

For me this year, however, there are a couple of these that need to be - as they say - drilled down. I am thankful for a brother and sister-in-law with a nice home and welcoming spirit, who are letting me stay with them for a couple of months. I am thankful for the health and resources to be able to go on this little adventure. And I am thankful for friends and family who are so incredibly supportive.

In the last few days, I have become thankful for something else. I'd been thinking of this trip as necessary to figure out who I am, having felt that I had lost my identity. Thanks to some really wonderful friends, I've realized that I do know who I am. Perhaps a bit like Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz, I had to leave home to find that out. (Fortunately, I've avoided the flying monkeys so far.) So I am thankful for that, and for my friends (you know who you are) who have patiently guided me to that realization.

This journey is an adventure, a break from the mundane, and figuring out what I want to DO - but it's reassuring beyond words to realize that the trip is not about learning who I am.

Happy Thanksgiving to everyone. May your day be filled with whatever combination of family, friends, food and football you wish, and may your team win. If you are working, thank you for allowing the rest of society to function while some of us sloth around. I hope we can return the favor some day.