HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

May your day be filled with the love and warmth of family and friends together.

May your bodies be blessed with food that nourishes and comforts.

May your lives live out the gratitude on this special day of thanks.

Blessings,

Thursday's Child

[My computer and the blogging program are in a snit, I think. They're not allowing me to show you the pretty pictures that abound on the Internet. So I hope you'll imagine one of your favorite scenes--indoor, outdoor--or favorite Thanksgiving-themed images--as the opening of this blog post. This post  first appeared here a year ago.]

 GIVING . . .

There's another way to look at Thanks-giving--emphasis on giving. Here's a poem by Alberto Rios, poet laureate of Arizona, that addresses that topic. I hope you like it.

When Giving Is All We Have

Alberto Ríos

                                              One river gives
                                              Its journey to the next.

We give because someone gave to us.
We give because nobody gave to us.

We give because giving has changed us.
We give because giving could have changed us.

We have been better for it,
We have been wounded by it—

Giving has many faces: It is loud and quiet,
Big, though small, diamond in wood-nails.

Its story is old, the plot worn and the pages too,
But we read this book, anyway, over and again:

Giving is, first and every time, hand to hand,
Mine to yours, yours to mine.

You gave me blue and I gave you yellow.
Together we are simple green. You gave me

What you did not have, and I gave you
What I had to give—together, we made

Something greater from the difference.
 

[Copyright © 2014 by Alberto Ríos. Used with permission of the author.]

Born in 1952, Alberto Ríos is the inaugural state poet laureate of Arizona and the author of many poetry collections, including A Small Story about the Sky (Copper Canyon Press, 2015). In 1981, he received the Walt Whitman Award for his collection Whispering to Fool the Wind (Sheep Meadow Press, 1982). He served as a Chancellor of the Academy of American Poets from 2014 to 2020.

 

  LIFE

[Today I want to revisit an old favorite--at least, it's an old favorite of mine. Hope it makes you smile, or laugh, or just nod your head from time to time.]

Life being what it is, as I've said so often before, I (like others) lose track of time, things I need, tasks that should have been done last week, and people.

So today I'm looking at LIFE.

Let's start with song lyrics popular in the 1950s, recorded by The Hi-Lo's:

Life is just a bowl of cherries

Don't take it serious; it's too mysterious
You work, you save, you worry so
But you can't take your dough when you go, go, go

So keep repeating it's the berries
The strongest oak must fall
The sweet things in life, to you were just loaned
So how can you lose what you've never owned?
Life is just a bowl of cherries
So live and laugh at it all

--Lew Brown and Ray Henderson

[If you've never heard this one, look for it on YouTube.]

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Erma Bombeck snagged the popular phrase, "Life is just a bowl of cherries," which had been an old saying when Hector was a pup, and turned it into the title for one of her many humorous books: If Life Is Just a Bowl of Cherries, Why Am I in the Pits?

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Here are some more thoughts on Life:

Peace is the beauty of life. It is sunshine. It is the smile of a child, the love of a mother, the joy of a father, the togetherness of a family. It is the advancement of man, the victory of a just cause, the triumph of truth.

     Menachem Begin [6^th Prime Minister of Israel]

My mission in life is not merely to survive, but to thrive; and to do so with some passion, some compassion, some humor, and some style.

     Maya Angelou [American poet]

Today I choose life. Every morning when I wake up I can choose joy, happiness, negativity, pain... To feel the freedom that comes from being able to continue to make mistakes and choices - today I choose to feel life, not to deny my humanity but embrace it. 

     Kevyn Aucoin [American makeup artist]

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I leave you with two important thoughts on how to live our lives:

Remember your dreams and fight for them. You must know what you want from life. There is just one thing that makes your dream become impossible: the fear of failure.

     Paulo Coelho [Brazilian lyricist & novelist]

Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven't found it yet, keep looking. Don't settle. As with all matters of the heart, you'll know when you find it.

     Steve Jobs [co-founder of Apple]

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May you not lose track of those things that are important to you!

And--may your Life be blessed!

Thursday's Child

   CHANGE

[I'm repeating this post because it's timely. So here's what I wrote some time ago. Hope it says something positive to you.]

We've just finished one third of the season of Autumn, and already I sense the big shift in temperatures, hours of daylight, amount of rain or sun. This time of year always finds me unsettled--not because of the weather, exactly, but because I know Autumn is progressing and will come to an end, and we'll be engulfed in Winter. I don't mean to hurry the seasons along--they seem to do quite well by themselves. If I could, I'd slow them down, so I could savor the sunny days and the few warm breezes that come my way. Yet, change is inevitable--time passes, life goes on, and everything changes. Everything.

You can always tell when the season is shifting, because I blog about transitions and change. Here’s the latest batch—they’re all visuals because I don’t have anything new to say about change.

 C. S. Lewis, known to many as the creator of The Chronicles of Narnia, became a Christian late in life and wrote many books about faith.

Maya Angelou is known for I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, as well as for many volumes of poetry.

Rumi was a 13th-century Persian poet, jurist, Islamic scholar, theologian, and Sufi mystic.

My  story--my life--is in my hands. Staggering thought, isn't it?

One early morning gratitude--mumbled while your eyes are trying to open, before the morning jolt of caffeine, before your feet hit the floor--just one expression of thankfulness can make a difference in how your day starts, continues, and ends.

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Change is taking place in my neighborhood. In the past few years, houses have sold. Of the current occupants, only three were here when I moved in 36 years ago. We don't change quickly, but when we do--wow! Look out, world!

I expect to be here several more years--probably not 36, given the age I've attained. And I've made changes to my house; no doubt there'll be more.

Since change is inevitable, you--and I--might as well try to embrace it.

Have a wonderful week!

Blessings,

Thursday's Child