Giving Thanks

Tomorrow we'll have more than toast and popcorn for our feast. But our feeling of belonging and home will be just the same as if we'd gathered around a ping pong table.

This fall has been a hard one for me. I have to keep reminding myself that life is not a dismal dark thing. Life is full of hope and light and love. But sometimes.....well, sometimes we all forget, I guess.

Being grateful is at the core of remembering:

I am grateful for parents who taught me loving kindness and gave me a fierce sense of justice.

I am grateful for life long friends who love me even when I am a pitiful heap of jello. Green jello--like in a church supper in the basement of a small mid western church. With walnuts.

I am grateful for my sons who defy all reputation of teenage boys and offer compassion and sometimes even do the dishes and the laundry without being asked. Once is sometimes, right?

I am grateful for my little dog who loves to snuggle and for the life of my old dog who has been gone almost a year now--but lives a full and romping life in my heart, still.

I am grateful for a gathered community of brilliant, giving people who guide my children, both at church and school.

I am grateful for my partner who works tirelessly for our family, and thankful for his commitment to stepping into his identity and showing our sons how to do the same.

I am thankful for good work to do and families who keep having babies just so I get to hold them. Nice!

I am grateful for the hard times that remind me of balance, of the good times.

We sit in darkness so that we may appreciate the light. The deep kernel of life within a seed requires rest in the dark earth. True for people, too. We're often scared by the dark times. We try to medicate, exorcise, eradicate the darkness. We run from the darkness.

I think this time I'll just sit with it. And remember to be grateful for the dark times, too.