art © 2011 Curly Girl Design, Inc./Leigh Standley. all rights reserved.
Happy Thanksgiving to you all!! I hope you are cozied down with friends and family feeding your belly and your spirit. Last year I shared my favorite way to say grace at the Thanksgiving table and I have not come up with a better one. I think I might say that one forever.
This year, I wanted to share one of my favorite writings. It is by William Ellery Channing from his Memoirs. I think it is a good reminder, as we gather together, that though there is much that strives to separate us from one another, whether it is opinion, or geography, we must try to remember that, at root, we are all made of the same stuff. The same magnificent stuff.
Here is the full excerpt:
“We are to be animated with a love which embraces all, of every rank and character. A love, which forgets divisions and outward distinctions, that breaks down the old partition walls and seeks a divine spark in every intelligence. Love which longs to redress the existing inequalities of society, which substitutes generous motives for force, which sees nothing degrading in labor but honors all useful occupation, and which everywhere is conscious of just claims and rights of all. Calling upon the mighty to save, not crush, the weak. And a love, which in a word, recognizes the infinite worth of every human spirit.”
Love to you and yours. xoxo
What a lovely sentiment…
Happy Thanksgiving to you and yours 🙂
I find this very timely and pertinent to my weekend. First, my mom and I struggle to connect. We sat next to one another in some chain restaurant and tried, I thought, to discuss our differing views on Christmas. She wouldn’t discuss though, felt we were just arguing. I grew frustrated that she kept shutting down, and I remain feeling not understood or known, truly, by my own mother.
In addition, she and I faced my uncle in a “Discussion” near argument over the missing headstone on my father’s grave, who passed a year ago. he is acting via his religious views, and won’t push my step mother to engage and put something. we, struggling to visit a barren grave, want otherwise and want his views put aside.
it was a tense conversation. one we weren’t even expecting to have (the lack of headstone was an utter surprise to us, as we were visiting from states far away).
i know he is trying to embrace this very idea. I know that I often try to explain the way that I live my life, non-religiously, as something very akin to what he says right here, in what you’ve shared. so it’s very helpful to read it today, written so eloquently and more accurately than I often explain it. Thank you for this. It’s something to strive for, daily.