Thanksgiving

It's Marathon Sunday in New York and the sky is bright blue, and cloudless. Temperatures are mild and about half the trees are still dressed in their spring wardrobe on Grace Court. Though I was just sending Thanksgiving recipes to a friend, it's hard to imagine that Thanksgiving is right around the corner.

I've been enjoying getting emails from people sharing what they're thankful for my Thanksgiving Project. Typically it will be during a hectic day where things will seem to be going more wrong than right, and I'll get an email out of the blue, and in the 30 seconds I stop to read it, it will immediately make me pause, and be thankful as well.

It was in the midst of our Civil War - not just extreme differences of opinion, but an actual war where states were fighting against each other - when President Abraham Lincoln issued a Presidential proclamation for a national day of thanks, to pause in the midst of strife to be thankful for all that we do have.

It's an interesting perspective to be thankful and happy hearted in the midst of adversity. Typically I think we're hardwired to want to be conditionally thankful, after the fact -- after we're in the promised land, and experiencing cushier, happier times, when everything is going our way. After we're received new things we've wanted or desired.

However, I'm not sure that's the way truly being thankful works.