Thanksgiving

Don Henley wrote a song  called My Thanksgiving. It is about finding gratitude in everyday,
and learning how to give love and how to receive it. 

Well, a lot of things have happened
Since the last time we spoke
Some of them are funny
Some of them ain't no joke

And I trust you will forgive me
If I lay it on the line
I always thought you were a friend of mine

And sometimes I think about you
I wonder how you're doing, now
And what you're going through

'Cause the last time I saw you, we were playing with fire
We were loaded with passion and a burning desire
For every breath, for every day of living
And this is my thanksgiving

Now, the trouble with you and me, my friend
Is the trouble with this nation
Too many blessings, too little appreciation

And I know that kind of notion, well, it just ain't cool
So send me back to Sunday school
Because I'm tired of waiting for reason to arrive
And it's too long we've been living these unexamined lives

'Cause I've got great expectations, I've got family and friends
I've got satisfying work, I've got a back that bends
For every breath, for every day of living
This is my thanksgiving

And have you noticed that an angry man
Can only get so far?
Until he reconciles the way he thinks things ought to be
With the way things are

Here in this fragmented world, I still believe
In learning how to give love, how to receive it
And I would not be among those who abuse this privilege
Sometimes you get the best light from a burning bridge

And I don't mind saying that I, I still love it all
I wallowed in the springtime
Now, I'm welcoming the fall

For every moment of joy, every hour of fear
For every winding road that brought me here
For every breath, for every day of living
This is my thanksgiving

For everyone who helped me start
And for everything that broke my heart
For every breath, for every day of living
This is my Thanksgiving

Gratefulness comes with every breath. The Japanese have a special word for it called Naikan. It  means "self-reflection". This form of meditation on the duality of life: : good-bad, bitter-sweet, right-wrong - requires intropection to accept one's life.
   The practice of Naikan is a form of mental psychotherapy that helps a person resolve emotional conflict and anxiety.

What  are  you grateful for this Thanksgiving? Listen to Billy Collins read the poem The Lanyard.
It leaves no doubt about his gratefulness to his mother for... well, just about everything.

Seeing Beauty

    "Anyone who keeps the ability to see beauty never grows old."

                                                                 ~ Franz Kafka

        Beauty surrounds us and is inside us. Someone may possess a beautiful dream inside themselves.  Another person may have a beautiful song within them.  When you appreciate beauty, says Kafka, you remain youthful. Perhaps, we should mark our birthdays, not chronologically but by another method. 

         What beauty did you see today? The greatest poets know that beauty is timeless and ageless.

    You cannot judge beauty only by the surface appearance of things. Close your eyes and listen to this song below. Can you hear the beauty? 

 Khalil Gibran said, "Beauty is not the image you would see nor the song you would hear,                                   
                      But rather an image you see though you close your eyes and a song you hear though you shut your ears." 

    In September of 1942, a young doctor named Viktor Frankl, his new bride, his mother, father, and brother, were arrested in Vienna and taken to a concentration camp in Bohemia.  It was events that occurred there and at three other camps, including Auschwitz,  that led the young doctor - prisoner 119,104 - to realize the significance of meaningfulness in life.

    In his book, "Man's Search for Meaning", Viktor Frankl,  prisoner and Holocaust survivor,  wrote about his experiences and how the love of his wife sustained him:

  

 1.  "But my mind clung to my wife's image, imagining it with an uncanny acuteness.  I heard her answering me, saw her smile, her frank and encouraging look.  Real or not, her look was then more luminous than the sun which was beginning to rise.

 2.  "My mind still clung to the image of my wife.  A thought crossed my mind: I didn't even know if she were still alive. I knew only one thing--which I have learned well by now: Love goes very far beyond the physical person of the beloved. It finds its deepest meaning in his spiritual being, his inner self.  Whether or not he is actually present, whether or not he is still alive at all, ceases somehow to be of importance."

   When you love someone deeply, the image you see lasts even when you close your eyes. Neither sleep, remote distance, imprisonment, nor passage of time changes that beauty.

Sunny and Windy

                       
   The weather forecast may report "sunny and windy days" and that should also be the ideal forecast in in your heart.
   If you watch this video above, it starts in Paris and ends in New York. They call Paris the "City of Light."
   Why is Paris so bright?

1. Paris is often referred to as "The City of Light" ("La Ville-Lumière"), both because of its leading role during the Age of Enlightenment, and more literally because Paris was one of the first European cities to adopt gas street lighting.

   If you're going to enjoy life, you need to find someone or something that gives you light. When that light shines upon you, you are forever changed.You develop a glow that can be seen by others.
       If you are lucky enough to find that light, then row toward it, like Mary Oliver says, and let the wind push your body to embrace it.
   
   
   

   “West Wind #2
   
   You are young. So you know everything. You leap
   into the boat and begin rowing. But listen to me.
   Without fanfare, without embarrassment, without
   any doubt, I talk directly to your soul. Listen to me.
   Lift the oars from the water, let your arms rest, and
   your heart, and heart’s little intelligence, and listen to
   me. There is life without love. It is not worth a bent
   penny, or a scuffed shoe. It is not worth the body of a
   dead dog nine days unburied. When you hear, a mile
   away and still out of sight, the churn of the water
   as it begins to swirl and roil, fretting around the
   sharp rocks – when you hear that unmistakable
   pounding – when you feel the mist on your mouth
   and sense ahead the embattlement, the long falls
   plunging and steaming – then row, row for your life
   toward it.”
   ― Mary Oliver, West Wind

The Gold of Her Laughter

“To him she seemed so beautiful, so seductive, so different from ordinary people, that he could not understand why no one was as disturbed as he by the clicking of her heels on the paving stones, why no one else's heart was wild with the breeze stirred by the sighs of her veils, why everyone did not go mad with the movements of her braid, the flight of her hands, the gold of her laughter. He had not missed a single one of her gestures, not one of the indications of her character, but he did not dare approach her for fear of destroying the spell.” 
― Gabriel Garcí­a Márquez, Love in the Time of Cholera

   If we are lucky, there are persons we meet in our life who are extraordinary. These people remind us that our world is full of beauty. If that person is a woman, she may fill your life with "the gold of her laughter".  She may make your heart beat "wild with the breeze of her sighs."
 
   Our lives are complicated and far from simple.  Still, when there are cracks in our life, beauty can be found, music can be made, brokeness can be made whole again, and these cracks can be filled with the gold of friendship and laughter.