Happy Thanksgiving

I’m traveling today, and my suspicion is that not too many eyes will fall upon these words, as this is not the sort of day when people surf the web looking at blogs by fledgling writers. I will keep this short, in case these words do reach you somehow. I don’t want to keep you.

I live in Massachusetts, where this whole tradition began, under a dark, bloody cloud. I’ve attended the National Day of Mourning in Plymouth. I know some of the history of King Phillip’s War and its aftermath. So much of the history of this country I call home is built upon horror and hatred, wholesale misery and profound suffering.

For my family, as it likely is for yours, this day has been and continues to be about togetherness and appreciation, and maybe a little bit about overzealous eating. I embrace this tradition, because it’s a good and important thing to do — to honor family and to be thankful.

But we should also remember King Phillip, and the churchgoing Indians who were the first and most devastated victims of the war that bears his name. We should remember a time two hundred years later, when Chief Joseph and the Nez Percé, ran for their lives across the frozen Northwest, starving at the same time that American families were having Thanksgiving feasts, thanking the Lord for the bounty they had, not even knowing the name of King Phillip. If they thought about Chief Joseph at all, those thoughts were not in any way warm with gratitude, or tinged with remorse.

They should have been.

Perhaps we can hold some humility in our hearts along with our joy? Perhaps we can also hold to some vision and some intention towards a better, more inclusive, more compassionate future? We can’t change the past, but what if we do these things?

• Remember your loved ones, and in that context, remember the value of human life.
• Share what you have with those around you. This is the spirit of family that I remember as the central tenet of so many Native American tribes.
• Remember the price that has been paid for this bountiful life. It is the debt that goes with the gratitude of the day.

May you be blessed, and may you recognize your blessings and where they’ve come from.

In that spirit, I thank you for your attention to these words.