Thanksgiving reminds us that we, descendants of these enfeebled hungry recipients of indigenous graciousness, have our footprints on the surface of the moon, yet still have paths yet to tread here on Earth.
While Thanksgiving is a national celebration, it is experienced in a private family setting. The traditions, rituals, and particular values and mannerisms of our family are the building blocks of those memories, treasured or trashed, that make thanksgiving such an intensely personal national holiday. While no place in the U.S. is completely safe from the abrasion and spark of ideology clash these days, thanksgiving thankfully allows a reset and reconnection at the family level. We, within the embrace of our family, are reminded what we all want to be free for, not just what we want to be free from. The “free” we as a nation demand includes the sort of freedom that has the space and grace to allow the side-dish of mixed-nuts we call family, to blossom freely into their full idiosyncratic whimsy. Whimsy that we sometimes find embarrassing, frequently find frustrating, but will always accept and ultimately love dearly.
The acceptance of differences that we learn in the family setting becomes the cornerstone of acceptance of differences encountered outside our immediate family. There is an awful lot going on in 2020 – a lot of it awful. The lessons available at Thanksgiving can help us to be the nation we set out to be.
