thanksgiving column

At this time of year, we sit around tables heaped with food. Someone may ask us to say what we are thankful for, and we may awkwardly reply. In that spirit, I wanted to move out into the public sphere a bit.

When I was an altar boy, I helped with far too many funerals during Vietnam and too many memorial masses for the dead of WWII and Korea, even in a small town. I lived to see a pull out of Vietnam and basically out of Iraq and Afghanistan as well.  War always creates too much destruction of property and people, with often little in return. Even with conflicts, the devastation has grown less. When I was young, we had the drills of hiding under our desks. Later, I heard testimony about fighting and winning nuclear war. Now we have fewer nuclear weapons and the threat is ominous but diminished.

Medicare, Medicaid, and CHIP may be flawed programs, but I am grateful for government help for us to more easily enjoy the miraculous growth of American medicine. The MRI and other scans have eliminated much of the dangerous exploratory surgeries. We have made strides in dealing with heart disease and cancer, the two main threats to longevity in our time. Psychoactive drugs have permitted so many people to be able to engage life more fully.

I am grateful for Ruth Bader Ginsburg. I heard a lecture by her on litigating women’s rights under the equal protection clause. She was the signal legal advocate for gender equality under the law. She is the only justice of the Supreme Court I have seen before they were elevated to the high court. She is a clarion call to the First Amendment rights.

I grew up with TV. Granted, it was black and white and had four snowy channels. Now I enjoy movies and can view pictures easily with DVD and even over the computer links. With the internet, we have evened the educational playing field. Rural folks have access to a world-wide library of material, without having easy access to a great library. With a few clicks I can listen to Springsteen, or the late Dan Fogelberg or Warren Zevon, and hear classical or world music, if I am feeling aspirational. In sports on TV, I am still loyal to the home area Steelers. My favorite sporting event is March Madness hands down. I love the hope for little David schools against Goliath basketball powers. It never fails to live up to my expectations.

Apollo 8 picture of earth continues to be an image that may well be indelible for me. It altered my perspective on the solar system and how fragile our planet appears in the void of space. In an odd way, I am grateful that the Cuyahoga River caught on fire in Cleveland, because it help to propel us from denial to environmental action, and we leave a legacy of a cleaner environment to those who follow us.

In religion, I owe so much to the Presbyterian Confession of 1967. It was my gateway into traditional Protestant faith in a new key. This week, two folks for whom I am grateful Joan and David Marshall, are asking pastors at lunch about a book for which we are thankful. I would cite Douglas John Hall, a Canadian theologian.

The Pilgrims made a compact almost four hundred years ago. Thanksgiving occurs through our connections to each other, the living and the dead.