Giving Thanks

Every forth Thursday in November is Thanksgiving, a national holiday in the United States. [1], [2]

A holiday that has been designated for people to give thanks to each other and to God is a beautiful thing but the spirit of gratitude seems to have given way to materialism.  Retailers are tripping over each other to start their sales earlier and earlier and quite a number of people have been transformed into ravenous consumers, some even going as far as camping out in front of certain stores for days in order to be one of the first to purchase something on sale.  I wonder if any of these people who line up for material indulgences and make time to go shopping ever spend a few minutes remembering God's gifts, among them life, Free Will and creativity [3] and say with sincere gratitude a prayer of thanks.


[1] The history of Thanksgiving in the United States can be traced back to a corn harvest in November 1621 during which the English settlers who sailed on the Mayflower gave thanks to the indigenous American Indians who taught them, among other things, how to grow corn.  See http://www.history.com/topics/thanksgiving
[2] I have never paid much attention to the history of Thanksgiving, because secular history is not something that interests me and because I am a deracinated individual (by choice) whose original birthplace has no such holiday.
[3] This is the first time I have mentioned creativity being a gift of God.  I placed it after Free Will to underscore its importance.  Highlighting creativity as part of God's many gifts came to mind during my Thanksgiving gathering with family this afternoon.  Creativity can be achieved within science but scientific creativity is limited by the laws of physics.  The creativity that is unlimited is achievable by our imagination, made possible by the grace of God, and I would like to believe that it is communicable with words, music and art which, arguably, are limited by human experience, physics and materials.  However, words, music and art are not the end products; they are intermediaries: they serve only as suggestions, like imaginary stepping-stones, that lead one from one place where things can be seen and heard and possible to another where things can only be imagined but not possible in this world.  Whether a communicated image that is otherworldly is a true vision of Heaven, Hell and Purgatory or a likeness of Heaven, Hell and Purgatory that can best be imagined by the limited human mind and expressed by the even more limited human language using words, music or art  is beyond my abilities to determine.  As an example, I quoted how Dante described one of his visions of Heaven, translated by John Ciardi, at http://lemomentdepaix.blogspot.com/2013/11/dantes-glimpse-of-heaven-in-third-sphere.html