This Year's Hidden Gift for Thanksgiving

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 Happy Thanksgiving!

The textured fruit of the Arbutus Unedo- the Strawberry Tree

2020 has been filled with challenges for all of us and may leave people wondering why we should set aside a day for thanksgiving, especially this year. 

We are being called to pare down our plans, curtail celebrations, and put our grand gatherings on hold. In essence, we've been asked to simplify and at this point we can view circumstances as an imposition or an opportunity.

The hidden gift of simplifying our Thanksgiving plans, (and possibly all our plans for the traditionally busy, festive holidays between now and January 1), is the quiet space it gives us. It's not always a comfortable or familiar space in our hectic world, but it is a gift to ourselves, a place to really think about past, present, and future blessings and to be at peace.  

This year will pass into the history books; normal activities will eventually resume. A positive side effect of this year of deprivation may be an affirmation of the importance of these holiday celebrations to our culture and individual lives. And with "2020 hindsight" we may find that a blessing of this year is that we've had a lot of space to practice being with our own thoughts because we've heeded the call to simplify.




Note: The photo above was taken on my cell phone during a walk yesterday. It took some detective work to identify the plant, so if I'm mistaken, I hope you'll let me know. 

  


 

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