Giving Thanks in Times of War

There has been a growing unrest between the daily headlines. I can read it in the new creases of my brow. Lines have been drawn and the artillery of offensive acts and politifacts carefully stacked. I am armed to the teeth and ready to  face the enemy.

That is where my story ends. Really I am too passive for battle. Thanksgiving Day looms and I already feel too full of it. I imagine hiding behind mounds of carved turkey and a bottomless glass of wine.

So many hurtful things have been said, and the resolution still remains. I conjure up foggy pageant images of Pilgrims and Indians breaking cornbread, sitting around an obscenely overflowing cornucopia. Meanwhile the gesture was wrapped in Friendship Blankets, murderous diseases hiding there.

My Gratitude, oh Gratefulness! Are you there?! I don’t want to wear you like some gaudy holiday sweater. I want the real thing, the healing embrace, your kindness and a softening heart. See me in the warm candelabra light of our shared feast.

I am not your sworn enemy. I am human. We are family.

What will it take to smooth out all your hurts, and mine? We can not take back and unravel all the stories told between us. I’m weary and calloused and seeking shelter from the hostility of the world. This world that gets smaller and smaller, as friends and family are picked off one by one, cozying up to our polarized Truths and the divisive voices that back us into corners, stoking anger, prickling with righteousness.

I want warm buttery rolls and soft trailing laughter. I want extra whipped cream on my pie and your acceptance of how tenuous and fleeting our time is together. Our holidays whipping past, our aging bodies giving way to the turning of the earth.

Please pass the gravy. I am not your sworn enemy.