Entering this holiday season I have so much to be grateful for.  My health.  My loved ones.  My home.  The abundance in my life.  

But it’s just so strange. 

As we celebrate Thanksgiving a bit differently this year, many of us are pining for normalcy and past celebrations with loved ones, our only connection with our families through Zoom.  I can’t help but to recognize the toll and devastation so many have faced this most difficult year and think of what so many must be facing and feeling on this American holiday and I think about the state of our country.  The protests, the division, jobs lost, homes lost, businesses destroyed, and of course the extraordinary number of lives lost during this historic pandemic.

With all that’s happened these last four years—from MAGA and the rise of white supremacy, nationalism and a growing desire to create a Judeo-Christian religious state—and all of this colliding with a very deadly pandemic—today as many of us focus on gratitude and give thanks for all that we have, may we also reflect for a moment and recognize the pain and loss in our country. And pray for healing, pray for those that have experienced such loss and have tremendous grief this this holiday season.

Gratitude and thanksgiving ought to be every day, it’s not a one day National holiday, but an everyday holiday.  May we all one day be grateful, peaceful, loving and joyful, all people, across this great land and throughout the world, and every day of every year. 

Amen.

Happy holidays!

On this Thanksgiving Day 2020, as a truth seeker and a lover of history, I found it somehow appropriate to learn more about the National Day of Mourning, to reflect upon its significance to recognize and honor the truth of the first meal we all so readily celebrate every year on this day as Americans.

The National Day of Mourning is an American Indian protest held on the fourth Thursday of November each year.  Here is a bit of history not widely known.  Enjoy.

THE SUPPRESSED SPEECH OF WAMSUTTA (FRANK B.) JAMES, WAMPANOAG

To have been delivered at Plymouth, Massachusetts, 1970 
ABOUT THE DOCUMENT: Three hundred fifty years after the Pilgrims began their invasion of the land of the Wampanoag, their "American" descendants planned an anniversary celebration. Still clinging to the white schoolbook myth of friendly relations between their forefathers and the Wampanoag, the anniversary planners thought it would be nice to have an Indian make an appreciative and complimentary speech at their state dinner. Frank James was asked to speak at the celebration. He accepted. The planners, however , asked to see his speech in advance of the occasion, and it turned out that Frank James' views — based on history rather than mythology — were not what the Pilgrims' descendants wanted to hear. Frank James refused to deliver a speech written by a public relations person. Frank James did not speak at the anniversary celebration. If he had spoken, this is what he would have said:

“I speak to you as a man -- a Wampanoag Man. I am a proud man, proud of my ancestry, my accomplishments won by a strict parental direction ("You must succeed - your face is a different color in this small Cape Cod community!"). I am a product of poverty and discrimination from these two social and economic diseases. I, and my brothers and sisters, have painfully overcome, and to some extent we have earned the respect of our community. We are Indians first - but we are termed "good citizens." Sometimes we are arrogant but only because society has pressured us to be so.

It is with mixed emotion that I stand here to share my thoughts. This is a time of celebration for you - celebrating an anniversary of a beginning for the white man in America. A time of looking back, of reflection. It is with a heavy heart that I look back upon what happened to my People.

Even before the Pilgrims landed it was common practice for explorers to capture Indians, take them to Europe and sell them as slaves for 220 shillings apiece. The Pilgrims had hardly explored the shores of Cape Cod for four days before they had robbed the graves of my ancestors and stolen their corn and beans. Mourt's Relation describes a searching party of sixteen men. Mourt goes on to say that this party took as much of the Indians' winter provisions as they were able to carry. ......”

If you are a seeker of truth, I encourage you to search and learn more about the true plight of indigenous people of this land and around the globe.