Today my American family and friends are giving thanks. Up here, on the wet and wild west coast, with gale force winds and trees looking like they’ll topple any minute, I’m giving thanks that I insulated my little cottage house last year.
But seriously, I think that every now and then, it’s a good idea to stop and thank whatever power you happen to believe in for all that is good in your life and in our world. I then think it’s really really important to look around at things that might be be different, things that might be better, and work to change them for the better. In our world today, there are too many homeless, too many children who don’t eat breakfast, too many addicts without anywhere to go for help. Gandhi said that a society’s success can be measured by how they take care of their vulnerable, and when I look around, I’m seeing too many not being taken care of.
Maybe today is the day all that can change. Maybe today is the day that the poor and disenfranchised, those who are standing in line at the food bank and those who sleep in doorways covered by bits of cardboard, can give thanks. The occupy movement looked like it was a beginning, but so much of it has been smashed. Maybe what we need is not to occupy a particular space, but an “occupy spirit” or an idea of occupy that lives inside of us. To paraphrase Medgar Evers, you can’t kill an idea. You can’t be kicked out of a park that you carry inside of you. There is an election coming up in the US. I can only hope that the occupy spirit shines through, and the people rise up and demand that every citizen deserves a little piece of that big American pie that a very few are getting fat on. Yes, it means voting. It’s a year away and a year is long time, but a world where everyone has something to give thanks for is the world I want to live in.
Happy Thanksgiving.
Sheryl McFarlane 