On giving thanks

Today we're grateful for the fact that the sun is shining. That, although cold, it's not bitterly so and that the wind is calm. Yesterday's snow showers set up a beautiful white backdrop that shows off the bright red plumage of a male cardinal rather spectacularly. We're grateful that we live at a time, in a place that holds such beauty. We're also very grateful that, thanks to writers such as Robin Wall Kimmerer (Braiding Sweetgrass) and Joy Harjo (How We Became Human), we've learned more about how gratitude can enrich a life.

male cardinal on snow

Photo by J. Harrington

As we looked about this Thanksgiving morning, our eye was caught by a broadside hanging on the wall of the family room. As we recall, we bought it years ago at a Trout Unlimited silent auction at the Minnesota or Twin Cities Chapter annual banquet. The idea to bid, we believe, came from the Better Half. She used to be the owner and CEO of a consulting business of which we were an employee. The business was a corporate supporter of TU for a number of years. This morning, it belatedly occurred to us that the broadside, while speaking about fishing, can also readily be applied to marriage and to life, if we're at all fortunate. So, along with everything else, today I'm grateful for organizations like TU and the Sierra Club, and for fishing, which has been a source of enjoyment with the Better Half over the years, and for having enjoyed as many trips and years together with someone wise enough to recognize the truth that "The charm of fishing is that it is the pursuit of what is elusive but attainable, a perpetual series of occasions for hope." We're very, very grateful that we have the Better Half. We wish as much good fortune for you, and yours, to be celebrated at this and future Thanksgivings.

"The charm of fishing is that it is the pursuit of what is elusive but attainable,
a perpetual series of occasions for hope."

Photo by J. Harrington

Minnesota Thanksgiving By John Berryman Listen Online For that free Grace bringing us past great risks & thro' great griefs surviving to this feast sober & still, with the children unborn and born, among brave friends, Lord, we stand again in debt and find ourselves in the glad position: Gratitude. We praise our ancestors who delivered us here within warm walls all safe, aware of music, likely toward ample & attractive meat with whatever accompaniment Kate in her kind ingenuity has seen fit to devise, and we hope—across the most strange year to come— continually to do them and You not sufficient honour but such as we become able to devise out of decent or joyful conscience & thanksgiving. Yippee!       Bless then, as Thou wilt, this wilderness board.

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