Thanksgiving Thoughts 2009

This has been an unusual Thanksgiving Day for me. I used to love Thanksgiving as do most kids, looking for the cranberry sauce, etc. And then there were those beautiful stories of the heartfelt bond that existed between the hungry Pilgrims and the Indians who welcomed them, supported them with gifts, and taught them which foods were edible and which poison, and sold them Manhattan Island for $24 in cheap trinkets. That’s what I was told as an impressionable child, and I admired the spirit of their friendship and their thanksgiving they experienced for passing on to them the lessons it had taken many generations to learn, lessons that it would be very difficult for average refugee from the inner cities of Europe to discover in this wilderness.

I can still see that picture of the Indian chief shaking hands with the head of the pilgrims while on both sides – white and red groups beamed on. For years this was a deep and moving symbol for it connected to something innocent, trusting, beautiful and loving that was part of the naïve nature of the child.

Perhaps this story had an especially telling effect on me. I have American Indians among my ancestors on both sides of my family, and to see representatives of both their side and that of my European forebears relating with such integrity and deep compassion was a great pleasure to me.

Spiritual Trauma

I can only describe it as a kind of “spiritual trauma” – the shock when I discovered the truth of how the innocence of the native peoples had been used against them, to steal their land and their livelihood by making treaties there was no intention of keeping. And on top of that, to discover the great Christopher Columbus – chopped off the hands of any of his Indian slaves who did not bring up enough gold from his mines. Buffy St. Marie summed it up well in “My Country ‘Tis Of Thy People You’re Dying” (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tl08n8_b3Sw)

And how was I to digest the discovery of the kidnapping and enslavement of my African forefathers, or the almost endemic raping of children by Catholic Priests. Gradually I began to see how I had been misled in the very structure of the world around me, in spite of the danger to me.

Search for the Truth

I feel as if I have always wanted to know the truth in the same sense the scientist wants to know the truth. Who am I, why am I here, where are we going, and what am I to do? What is my Dharma.

I began to prefer the scientific approach early in my life, I idolized scientists, and thought their way of looking at things made a great deal of sense. The true scientist and the true mathematician is loyal to a certain very unprejudiced point of view. This makes their input very special in a world where it seems everyone is out to sell us something, whether it is government or religious dogma, advertising, or just a person with a bone to pick.

It is quite startling how much of the information we “consume” turns out to come from some biased group, be it religious, political, etc., and people are, to an enormous extent, induced to believe things without evidence. This is in stark contrast to the scientific way of approaching things – which is probably how you would want your neurosurgeon to approach things while performing surgery on you.)

The utter confusion we have been thrown into, even with those we should trust wholeheartedly, is well demonstrated by the recent Swine Flu Vaccine Affair. On one side are those who are panicked that they wont get their life-saving vaccination in time before the great Pandemic arrives, and those who are foaming-at-the-mouth militant that it is all a big hoax to rake in huge profits, while injecting heavy metals and untested virus material into our bodies.

How can we go about believing in anyone’s Health Reform Proposal?

But I digress.

So this Thanksgiving I am grateful that I have had the extraordinary opportunity to be awakened to all these truths, that though hard to swallow, they are important parts of the cure. Some of the appeal of my original Thanksgivings may have faded, but the teachings of the importance of gratitude have survived – and along the way I have become even more aware of the crucial need we have to share the hard-earned wisdom each of us has if we are to survive.

So even though Thanksgiving has lost some of its original appeal, I realize how incredibly valuable it is to stop and feel sincere a gratitude for the people in my life and for those special things I have in my life, and with not even having to ask who I’m grateful to, I can still feel the deep sense of gratitude.

I’m not a child anymore and I don’t think that the world owes me a living and I constantly look out at situations I see around me and on the news and realize that “There but for the grace of God go I,” (an experience that is even available to atheists). I realize that it was by fortune of birth that I grew up in a country with the level of freedom that we have, to a family with the extraordinary genetic hybrid mixture I was granted, to have been given the astounding education I’ve received, and I appreciate it. I am even grateful to the weeks I spent in detention at the principal’s office.

I am grateful for the ability to think logically and systemically that has guided my life. I am grateful for the fact, in spite of the challenges we face, we are surrounded by the answers that we need and are at the point that we can reach out and accept them –, grateful that there is a global information system capable of quickly spreading these wise truths throughout our culture.

I’m grateful to Gandhi for reminding us to “think globally and act locally,” and to all those individuals and organizations that are enabling communities to begin to come together around questions that matter. I am grateful to all those who are offering us a way out of our confusion that taps into the power of Love (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satyagraha).

I’m grateful to the Promise USA team for helping to create the possibility of a national network citizen conversations http://promiseusa.com/ .

I feel gratitude for the many gifts of nature and the opportunity that I have to appreciate them.

I am grateful that we’ve developed our social and communication system to the point where we actually can make the choice to change the misguided world we live in – that for the first time we actually have the power to do something about it in that that power isn’t located entirely in the hands of someone located thousands of miles away, but in fact, it is in my hands and your hands!

We are in the midst of an epic struggle, and whether or not we pull out of our cultural death spiral, is not yet clear. I am grateful that we at least have a chance to awaken and that there is still time to turn things around.