Working on Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving Day will be here soon, one week from today.

We think of Thanksgiving as an event. We celebrate it with large meals, parades, lots of football on television. For some of us Thanksgiving is the beginning of the retail season.

There are people who have jobs which require them to work on Thanksgiving Day.

Even some of us who do not need to show up at our jobs on Thanksgiving Day are working on thanksgiving.

Thanksgiving is more than a single day event just over a month before the end of the year.

We like to think we earn what we have and how we live through our own behavior. We like to think we somehow deserve the ability to consume an inordinate share of the world’s resources.

Thanksgiving, gratitude, often does not come naturally for us.

Our gratitude depends on our ability to receive and recognize the gifts life has for us. We are still working on our willingness to accept blessings as gifts, not as wages. When we believe we have a right to health, wealth, or happiness, it is difficult for us to be thankful. Many of us experience the value of these gifts more authentically when we lose them for a time.

Even our experiences we do not enjoy, which make us feel uncomfortable, can give us gifts. As we remember and reflect on what happens to us, we unwrap the gifts life has for us. Some of the times we least appreciate may have the most valuable gifts for us.

Our thanksgiving has more to do with our own attitudes and expectations than our circumstances.

How will you work to become more deeply grateful by next November?

What are the gifts life gives you for which you are most deeply thankful?

[Image by eschipul]