The Hebrew word for Jew is Yehudi, which is connected to the Hebrew word for thanks and gratitude: hoda'ah. What an incredible ancestral heritage! Jews, are the "Thanking People!"
This has been a year where so much of our gratitude has been inextricably bound up in our sorrow, our fear, our disappointments. We have grieved the loss of so much in the year 2020, and now we head into a holiday that will most likely not look like any other Thanksgiving we have experienced in our lives. Yet, I continue to hear streams of what everyone is thankful for. Ah, yes, the paradoxical holding of loss and grief along with gratitude for something as simple as the trees in Chico ablaze with color.
A colleague shared recently, “I am deeply appreciative of my deep appreciation.” I was struck by this profound idea. Our ability to experience gratitude is indeed a blessing, even in the midst of so much turmoil. For this, we also give thanks! We are grateful to be a “Thanking People.”
May we have the courage to invite both gratitude and sadness to the table this year, as our Thanksgiving longings may not be what we had envisioned. May we be blessed with the gift of time so that we may appreciate things in our lives grand and small. May we all be well nourished by the hearty meal of gratitude.
