Thanks. Giving.
Revisionist history. Whatever.
I’m no historian. However, the truth remains that our nation was established on violence, and it continues to be a major industry. It began with a prolonged genocide of native Americans, a war against the British, chattel slavery. Give Thanks.
I feel like a Turkey.
As I recall, the original thanksgiving was depicted to me as a meal between settlers and natives. America’s still struggling for diversity around its tables. Diversity has become acceptable, even in vogue, ironically on the heels of a period when affirmative action has been deconstructed and ruled obsolete. If equality has been achieved, why the need to overcome homogeneity?
So, while America’s culture of business and finance searches for a new American face, industrial jobs continue to be exported. Poverty, by the numbers, remains disproportional to people of color. However, downward mobility is increasinly less discriminate. No female President; no person of color. Ours remains a White House.
We’re increasingly sensitive to the issues of race and ethnicity in our vision for human community. For that, I give thanks. However, it comes only as everyone has become a potential stranger. Preemtive wars, border fences, hostile immigration policies. Don’t we need a passport to go to Canada now?
America’s most patriotic Christians protest the proliferation of Harry Potter as well as Islam and secularity. Their patriotism remains a kind of xenophobia; they are perfectly at home with its logic, which carries in it the negative reflection of their religion. Liberal Christianity faithfully seeks to build community and overcome a history of denominationalism and insularity. Yet, they remain in decline awhile the number of conservative Christians grow with souls who don’t want to be “left behind.”
Oh, how thankful. Oh God, how giving.
I am thankful, however, today. I am thankful for friendship, for love, and for generative power of passion. I’m thankful for honesty and the radical lengths it can travel to open our minds critically to the most impossible of possibilities.
In a world where most of our relationships are based on exchange in search of profitable exploits, I’m thankful for simple giving and the gratitude that overflows our need to recieve.
amen.