A few thankful thoughts

Here we are. Thanksgiving 2020 in the U.S.A. What a long, strange, and perilous year it's been so far. I turned 55 a few weeks ago. It's safe to say that in all those years, I haven't experienced a year like this year.

I know for those of us who are relatively comfortable it's funny to joke about 2020 seeming like the end of the world. But for many people who aren't comfortable, life usually, perhaps always, feels unstable, precarious, scary. I think it is important to keep that in mind.

It's also sobering to consider that just in this country, more than a quarter of a million people have died as a result of being infected with the sars-cov-2 virus and contracting COVID-19. Many more people who contracted COVID-19 will suffer chronic effects from the disease. The question remains, how ready might we be when, not if, another novel virus infects the human population. Hopefully, we're much more ready than we were for this novel coronavirus, which caught the U.S. unawares and flatfooted. Of course, a lot of this has to do with responsible leadership.

Speaking of responsible leadership, here's a link to a video President-elect Biden and his wife, Jill, did to deliver a Thanksgiving message of hope to a greiving nation: click here.

Obviously, finding effective ways to get the spread of sars-cov-2 under control while keeping the economy afloat will be his first order of business once he takes office. An important part of his requires securing another stimulus package. In my view, any stimulus package needs to be aimed at putting money directly into the hands of people who need it and to help small business owners. Putting money directly into the hands of people, who will spend it for life's necessities, is the best way to stimulate the economy.

Despite my family being afflicted with COVID-19 back in March, I am grateful for many things this year. Even though my wife continues to suffer some lingering respiatory effects, which are the result of getting COVID-19 after having had a nasty case of pneumonia more than 10 years ago, I am thankful we all recovered intact.

I am also grateful for the gift of faith. I am thankful for my wife and 6 children. I am thankful for many friends and especially for a few close friends, people who know virtually everything about me and yet, by some miracle, still love me. I am thankful for my diaconate, which privileges me to serve others in various ways. I am grateful for the ministry of overseeing the deacons and the formation of new deacons with which my bishop entrusted me this year. I am grateful for a decent job and good work colleagues. I am thankful that I live in a beautiful city, a place called Bountiful.

Today I am not interested in tracing the history of the first Thanksgiving or even going back a revisiting President Roosevelt's designation of the penultimate (I get to use it again!) Thursday in November as the fixed of the holiday, which was later overruled by Congress several years later, putting it back on the ultimate Thursday of November. I am grateful that our nation sets a day aside specifically to give thanks to God Almighty. I am also grateful that nobody is compelled to give thanks to God or even to give thanks. But, as Brother David Steindl-Rast observed: "Look closely and you will find that people are happy because they are grateful. The opposite of gratefulness is just taking everything for granted."

So, today let's not take everything, or anything, for granted. Let us also be mindful of those who have not. Since today is a civic holiday, albeit one with religious overtones, as Americans, let's commit ourselves to forming an ever-more-perfect union. In light of the current divisions, this is going to take a lot of intentional work.

As a Christian, I am put in mind of these words from the Preface for the Eucharistic Prayer for last Sunday's celebration of the Solemnity of Christ the King:

For you anointed your Only Begotten Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, with the oil of gladness as eternal Priest and King of all creation, so that, by offering himself on the altar of the Cross as a spotless sacrifice to bring us peace, he might accomplish the mysteries of human redemption and, making all created things subject to his rule, he might present to the immensity of your majesty an eternal and universal kingdom, a kingdom of truth and life, a kingdom of holiness and grace, a kingdom of justice, love, and peace

I am also grateful for the opportunity the global pandemic has given nations to re-set their economies vis-à-vis human equity and the environment.

As Pope Francis has tirelessly pointed out, we have opportunities for positive change, to establish a new and better normal. On this Thanksgiving, I pray for our national, state, and local leaders that we can, to borrow the motto of President-elect Biden's Transition: "Build Back Better."