Perspective: Thanksgiving reflections

When individuals are asked what they are most thankful for at Thanksgiving time, they usually mention good health, family, and loved ones.

Others are grateful for what their faith means to them.

Some might express gratitude for the great amount of liberty afforded in this country.

When you get right down to it, none of us needs a very long list. When we simplify life to that which matters the most, we can focus on a few items and be content.

Think about it. A faith that gives life meaning. A feeling of security provided by Providence. A country where we can pursue happiness, life, and work as we see fit. Relationships with others that provide support, stability, and an emotional sense of well-being. And good health to enjoy all of life's benefits.

A life without these finds only discouragement, disappointment, loneliness, despair, uncertainty, pain, and a journey that doesn't seem to have any meaning.

It's no wonder that we consider those few life essentials to be the most important, and the objects of our most sincere gratitude.

Some of us can appreciate the good fortune of having a new car, a comfortable house, a satisfying job, or our choice in clothing.

But those items aren't in the same category as the essentials of faith, family, freedom, and health.

The Pilgrims, in their first Thanksgiving in 1621, practiced a simple faith that demonstrated gratefulness for those basic essentials in life.

Their faith was important. Their relationship with each other was important. And the very food on their plate was not to be taken for granted (in the severe winter in 1621-1622 they were allotted only five kernels of corn each day).

Those hard times were not forgotten, even after a very bountiful harvest in the fall of 1623. It was then that the Pilgrims had their second Thanksgiving celebration with a tremendous feast that featured corn, plums, grapes, fish, nuts, pork, chicken, turkey, and deer.

But the meal's first course on Thanksgiving of 1623 was simply a plate with five kernels of corn, to make sure they remembered all that God has brought them through.

No doubt their hearts were moved as they sat down with their native American guests on that Thanksgiving.

And this year at Thanksgiving time all of us, like the Pilgrims so many years ago, can contemplate and appreciate the simple blessings of life. And each of us, even if we have very little in the way of material pursuits, can find our own hearts overflowing with gratitude.

David Wilson, EdD, is the associate principal at Jefferson City High School. You may e-mail him at [email protected].