A blessed day to all readers, and particular to those in the United States who celebrate it, a blessed Thanksgiving Day.  I have no special insight into what really transpired at that first Thanksgiving feast.  Perhaps the folklore has grown legs over the past four centuries, broadening our imaginations as to what took place that early harvest celebration.  But what has stuck with me into adulthood is the very idea of it.  The ideal of it: that two sets of peoples (at minimum) who had no basis for trust or friendship, came together anyway.  They shared their bounty, some of their customs, their time and their very selves.  On those few harvest days (and for a period of truce thereafter?), at least in my ideal vision, there was no 'other' to degrade or oppress, there was only an 'other' with whom to break bread.

In today's political climate, the ideal of coming together across the proverbial aisle, welcoming the stranger, sharing the fruits of our labors and growing in community, seems an impossible dream.  A democratic nation's ideal, perhaps, and an act of Christian grace, for certain.  So today's Gospel lesson of Jesus' cleansing of the ten lepers, and the gratitude expressed by only one - the outsider, the one held in lower esteem by the broader Jewish community - connected in my brain and heart to these Thanksgiving musings. 

When confronted with the opportunity to give thanks for our abundance (large or small), our freedoms, our responsibilities, our blessings - do we do so?  With generosity of spirit and deep gratitude?  Whom do we thank?  With whom do we share our gratitude (it's beneficiaries)?  Like the Samaritan who returned to Jesus after being made clean, we should of course first give glory and thanks to our God: "...it is right to give our thanks and praise."  Yet too often we behave more like the nine, who neglected to stop and consider the gift they'd received.  Then, like the Pilgrims and Indigenous peoples who gathered in abundance, we should also share our bounty and ourselves with anyone and everyone we can.  Yet too often we (or at least me!) neglect to stop and remember our sacred duty and joy to share the graces of our lives with others.  

So, on this Thanksgiving Day, I ask God's forgiveness for the many ways that I fall short of these ideals, but also ask for God's guidance and grace that I might do better tomorrow and every day thereafter.  Will you join me?   Amen.