This year as we gather with family and friends in this Thanksgiving Season, let's try something different.
Instead of wishing for more of or different in our lives, let's "Want What We Have".....meaning let's not be wanting, whining, complaining and striving for what is out of reach, but let's be embracing what we have NOW.
Embrace the good in your life as it is NOW....not what you hope it to be tomorrow or the next day or the next.
Embrace the good things, both the material and the intangible in your life.
And most of all, embrace and celebrate the people in your life.
Today is afterall, all we are guaranteed.
Who knows what tomorrow will bring.
And let's not get too caught up in the Myth of America on this the day we give Thanks.
Americans are very adept at rearranging history so that it reflects upon us as a just people, a caring people. We tend to sweep under the rug anything our ancestors did that we, the current more enlightened generation, feels puts us, as a nation, under a bad light.
Like the whole invading a foreign land and systematically killing off the aboriginal peoples that were already here and stealing their land.
I am sure our white, European forefathers felt it was their God given right to treat the heathen "savages" they found upon the American shores the way in which they did.
The founding fathers, in the guise of the Federal Government pushed them off their land and broke every Treaty that was ever made with the indigenous peoples. They made it so the Native American could no longer lead the life they wished. And when the native peoples pushed back, our government went on a campaign to vilify the Native American to justify their Genocide against the race.
As we gather to remember how truly blessed we are as Americans this year, let's take a moment or two to remember that this day, Thanksgiving Day, is a Day of Mourning for the Indigenous Peoples of our Country. It is a time for them to gather and mourn the decimation of their culture at the hands of the Europeans who came from across the sea.
We can't jump in a time machine and go back like Peabody and Sherman from those old Saturday morning cartoons to the early days of our American history and "do over" the parts where we were not at our best.
But we CAN be respectful of their losses and their feelings at this time.
And we SHOULD take steps both within ourselves to change our hearts AND work to bring our Native brethren into the Circle of Inclusion of the bounties of our country.
Do you realize that Native Americans are among the most impoverished group in America? While some tribes have been able to use American corporate models to provide a wellspring of funds for their peoples, many of the Native peoples in the Midwest and Southwest in this country live on reservations where destitution and squalor abound.
One such place is Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota.
Consider a donation this year to the NATIONAL RELIEF CHARITIES.
Or get in touch with the FRIENDS OF PINE RIDGE RESERVATION and see how you can help.
I have worked with the Pine Ridge Group before on different projects. They are always much appreciative of any help you can lend, be it monetary donations, items or taking a trip to the reservation to lend a hand in person if you have the time and the skills that would make you a valuable helper.
It's a time both to look back at how we got here but it's also a time to build stronger bonds of Brotherhood between ALL Americans.
During this Season of Giving let there truly be room at the table for all mankind.
Sluggy
