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November 22, 2007
Happy Thanksgiving
In many ways, Thanksgiving is the best of the holidays. With the exception of the cook, and it is a significant exception, the only obligation is to talk and eat. There are no worries about inappropriate or unwanted gifts or resolutions not to keep, just eating and talking. And of course, there is remembering the often wonderfully fortuitous stuff of our lives: our families, our economic conditions, our material things, our intellectual joys. And we remember those whom we love that will not at our table today.
But there are those who are not at anyone's table; those to whom the same fortunes that have brought us bounty have brought homelessness, loneliness, alienation, death, war, famine, and despair. To what extent is our Thanksgiving giving thanks that we are not among them? I worry that Thanksgiving as a holiday is motivated by the same mistake that causes a football player to point heavenward when he has been successful against his opponent.
With these few sober thoughts, I wish you the happiest of holidays and hope that your table is full, your talk fulfilling and that you have much good to remember. I know I do.
[I wrote these words, with a few minor changes, two years ago and they still reflect my thoughts on this Thanksgiving]
Posted by Duane Smith at November 22, 2007 7:20 AM | Read more on Odds and Ends |
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Comments
Duane, it was nice meeting you at SBL. May you have a happy Thanksgiving!
Posted by: Stephen C. Carlson at November 22, 2007 8:22 AM
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