Thanksgiving at Martha Jane’s House
“The surest route to wealth is to change one’s perception of wealth!” — Stated by a good friend in Recovery at an NA meeting last night, as we were sharing on what we are thankful for, including the freedom as folks with addiction issues to get together to discuss how we can live healthier, more productive lives and be better examples of humanity, which was an inspiration for this God bless Us Everyone Thanksgiving missive.
Greetings, Thanksgiving celebrants! God bless you one and all, and God bless those who are working this Thanksgiving—either by choice or not! And, when I say, “God bless;” I mean it. Thanksgiving is, was, and mostly has always been about thanking God for just about everything!
Now, I ain’ gonna dissect, parse, debate, nor illuminate tiresome, over-stimulating discussions surrounding cultural appropriations, approbations, gyrations, and stuff designed to make my head hurt and to confuse, confound, or irritate the three or four of you who might listen to or read this.
I’m hear to tell you I am thankful to God, the one in monotheistic, Judeo-Christian history, who not only brung me to the dance, but He done brung all of us for centuries to the point in this great nation where we can celebrate His eternal Goodness, provision and overall national security and peace—even if we are fractured a bit at present.
And, He has given us the ability and freedom in these United States to worship whomever and however we wish, long as we ain’ hurtin’ somebody else; and, if my doing my best, even if tepid at times, to adhere to an orthodox understanding of long-held tenants of Judeo-Christianity hurts someone else’s feelings, then that doesn’t count as hurting! Sorry!
This nation was founded on Godly principles informing our democratic form of government, which encourages the individual, the family and communal collectives of like-minded and dissimilar folks, willing to obey agreed upon laws and directives for the sake of safety, harmony, and success based on hard work and reliance on a Supreme Being and the volitional, non-enforced goodness of others, the autonomy to express themselves, to worship whatever Higher Being, lower being, or non-being they want to, and to be free from punitive measures by an elected government designed to ensure life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, and not the modern-day largesse seen by institutions attempting, with increasing success, to supplant the very goodness and principles undergirding our wonderful nation and egalitarian form of government, and the very substructures that are wholly inconsistent without a recognition of a Supreme, all-powerful Being, who created us, sustains us and desires that we know Him, intimately, but who does not require it. Sorry to get all Faulkneresque on ya, but that’s just how it flowed!
If God requires so little of us, other than to love Him and others, rooted in our free will, then why do we require so much more of each other in the name of government, fairness (life ain’), religion, tolerance, temperance, etc?
I believe this nation to be unparalleled in its historical goodness, generosity toward its own and others around the world, and its contemporary offerings of freedom to one and all. It is a rare worldly blessing indeed that most of us can gather with family and friends, free from the fear of harm and constant invasion by non-benevolent entities, to celebrate anything, but for most of us to be free, safe, and prosperous enough to celebrate gluttonously a day of Thanksgiving to a good God, who is so misunderstood, maligned, and mentioned in vain, is a rare blessing indeed.
This Thanksgiving I am uber-grateful to be able to thank God, friends and family for new-found sobriety, clean-living, depression and anxiety tempered, yet not forgotten, and the freedom, time and economy to share with them my thankfulness to Him and His eminent Providence. And, I thank Him for the freedom in this great country—where the amenities of the poorest rival the amenities of kings and queens of old—for those who don’t see Thanksgiving the way I do, and for them to be able to celebrate it any way they desire, or not to celebrate it.
Thank you, Lord! Slim Gravy, who is Fat Gravy for Thanksgiving.
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