turning points

Thanksgiving morning. My favorite holiday of the year. Actually, my favorite day of the year! I love the food prep (I love food!!) and the dinner planning. I love that our tradition is that the day is about gathering, and not much else. Most of the boys and my niece are sleeping in, Guy and I have had a wonderfully lively discussion about faith, Faith, life and love while sipping coffee and reading. Joseph is slightly sore from wrestling practice yesterday, but still his lovey and talkative self. It's chilly, sunny, and lovely. Soon, I will start getting our turkey ready to go in the oven and figure out just how I want to prepare the beautiful acorn squash I want to add to the menu. Most of the day will consist of food, wine, conversation and laughter, with a parade and some football thrown in, and maybe even a game or two of cards, and some old friends who may stop by tonight, or sometime over the weekend. I love the simplicity of the day, along with the complexity of thankfulness.

This year, I have more clarity than usual regarding just how thankful I am, and just how complex thankfulness is. So much has happened this year -- both "good" and "bad" -- about which I am, honestly, thankful; therein lies the complexity. In order for some of the good to have come about, I had to fully experience the bad, and for that reason alone I am thankful for both. If I were just to be thankful for the good, I would be denying the fundamental basis for the changes in my life that I celebrate. When we sit together and express out loud our thanks on this day, will I choose any of the valleys? Not a chance. That thankfulness is an internal force that brought about growth, healing, maturity, playfulness and a marked deepening of my faith -- all things that I had thought were mostly gone from my psyche, from my being, from my heart. Is it strange that I am, in my heart of hearts, grateful for the events, people and lessons? You might think so; in fact, sometimes I think so, too. But I don't have to "like" them to be grateful, and not because "it's the thought that counts." Far from it!

A lesson I learned long, long ago is that no one has to like what life dishes out. Ever. No one has to just accept it, either. But knowing that it's there, that it will come no matter what we do, say or hope for/against, and will come at us can be more than just a little daunting. Somewhere in there, I learned that the best thing to do is to face it all, process it, and determine how it will affect you -- what you have learned. More recently still, I've faced the magnitude of those lessons. It's more than "I'm bigger than this," or "This is who I am." What I've learned to do this year is that progress is the goal, and it really doesn't matter if that progress is measured in inches, miles or fathoms: any progress is something for which to be thankful, and to graciously accept.

Learning is important to me. I love to teach, but only because of what I learn in return. The sharing of lively minds is joyful and uplifting to me (even if the subject matter is painful) because in the end, we will have progressed, deepening our understanding, regardless of how (mental, physical, emotional). All in all, what I am most thankful for this year is progress, the ability and desire to learn, to share, to grow and to forgive. I am most thankful for my faith, and where it can take me, if only I let it.