Giving Thanks

Some years ago, I came up with a great Thanksgiving idea.  Unfortunately, my teenage kids were old enough to just roll their eyes at my effort to convince them it was a fun game.  The idea was this - each one of us would write a thank you letter to the Universe, detailing all the things we were thankful for.  We would then seal the letter, without showing each other, and box it up with the Thanksgiving decorations to read the next year.  My kids agreed, albeit begrudgingly, and over the years to come we had many giggles over the things they wrote.  I wish I had a lifetime of those letters instead of just two years.  

After the kids went to bed, I wrote my own letter - taking time to really reflect on what I am thankful for in life. Finding it again the other day, I realize the things that I was thankful for are still all around me; and the things that have changed, well they were never on my gratitude list in the first place. 

It is a difficult time now without doubt.  We are all struggling financially and worried about the days to come.  But remember as you share today with whomever you share it with - it is not the turkey you are thankful for, or the china, or the fixin's, it is having people you love and care about to share the day with.  

Happy Thanksgiving

Sherry 

Dear Universe,

I just wanted to take a moment this Thanksgiving Day to tell you thank you.  Thank you for the sun that lights our world, warms our souls, and decorates the corners of our children’s pictures. 

Thank you for the moon that lights our night and guides our poets and lovers.  Since the birth of the moon’s orbit all lovers separated have found togetherness in the knowledge that they both were bathed by the light of the same moon. 

Thank you for the stars, they share their greatness with us and remind us even though we are infinitesimal we share in great things and even though we may be long gone before our light is seen by others, it is still worth sharing our light with the world. 

Thank you for the trees.  Thank you so very much for the trees.  There has never been a time in my life when I was down that a walk outside didn’t make me feel better.  No matter what season, the trees are always so beautiful.  The winter trees with their stark beauty and promise of birth.  The spring trees with their budding flowers and promise of growth.  The summer trees with their full leaves and promise of verdant life.  The fall trees with their changing colors and promise of beauty even, and perhaps more so, in the arms of death. 

Thank you for families.  What a wonderful concept that certain people are bound to us by the very lifeblood coursing through our veins.  May we always treasure and hold one another especially close. 

Thank you for friends  - our chosen family - created by the bonds of heart and time, triumph and tragedy.  May we always value their presence for our lives would be empty without them. 

Thank you for granting mankind reason so we could learn to make our lives comfortable and easy.  Now if we would only remember to keep them simple. 

Thank you for the internet.  What an ingenious way to bring all mankind closer together.  May we use it to build relationships and create time rather than to fritter away our minds and seconds. 

Thank you for the holidays.  They give us moments to pause and reflect in rest.  In yearly traditions we are reminded that time is always passing.  The only way to slow it is to revel in the moment. 

Thank you for nature.  She is such a wise and balanced goddess and shares with us so much of her bounty. With all our reason and technology, we could never create the sensation of biting into an apple or a ripe orange – sweet, juiciness, filled with life, amazing…..

Thank you for our many teachers – our blessings and our challenges.  When I open my heart I always hear your patient guiding voice.  How many times have you put a book before me at the exact moment I needed some certain lesson.  I can’t even count them.  When we are willing to truly listen and see, learn and understand, and, most importantly, when we are willing to love and be loved, your grace, beauty, and wisdom always shine upon us.

Finally thank you for all the wonderful little things, too many to name.   Things like the sound of children’s laughter and the rhythmic crashing of the waves upon the shore.  The flowers, so many glorious colors, so many delicious scents.  Music, especially when we hear it in our own hearts.  Thank you for ice-cream.  For bonfires and acoustical guitars and good times.  For caramel apples and cotton candy, circuses and baseball games.  Thank you too for photographs and memories.  Thank you for paper and pens and especially the printing press.  Thank you for the fire’s flames as they flicker in the cold night air and for warm blankets on winters’ nights.  Thank you for coffee shops.  Thank you for poetry and literature and classic movies.  For art and man’s ability to express himself.  Thank you for time, though I complain about it, for I know though it seems limited it is truly infinite, always reminding us so are we.  

Thank you for this life and the opportunity to fill it or not as we choose.  Thank you… for everything. 

Yours truly,

Sherry

Comments

[Karin]

Dear Sherry,

thank you once again for finding the words that swirl around in my own head and heart unable to express themselves as beautyfully as yours. Yesterday, I also gave thanks for Alba, who turned 9 on that day, and fills my life with wonder.

[Jim Karger]

A beautiful thought, well written.