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Wednesday, November 26, 2014 © Copyright 2009-2014, The Ultrapolis Project. All
Rights Reserved.
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Pride slays
thanksgiving, but a humble mind is the soil out of which thanks naturally
grow. A proud man is seldom a grateful man, for he never thinks he gets as
much as he deserves. -Henry Ward Beecher This we know. The pilgrims came
across the seas, endured great hardships, in their voyage as well as in their
new home. In the midst of their struggles, aid came from the natives of
the strange New World, a people with whom they had nothing in common, and
with no reason or obligation to help them. Yet, the help came across
the racial, cultural, language and religious barriers. In gratitude,
the pilgrims reached back across those same divides, and welcomed into their
homes for a feast of thanksgiving those they had first seen as savages.
And so happened a uniquely American event, where two peoples who had no
language, no traditions, and no formal faith in common, came to be in
communion. Whatever happened after that day, whatever
followed, the wars and betrayals, the terrible sorrows and endless trails of
tears fed by the greed and ignorance of those that came after; beyond all
that, the idea of that day still lives on more than three centuries
later. For always, as persistent as man’s violent and selfish ambition,
there has also been that unyielding human reach for freedom and truth, a just
peace, and on more sublime occasions, for the compassion that stubbornly,
even in lonely anonymity, insists to extend its love to strangers. So,
we humans, even in our corrupted state of imperfection, see the good and the
noble, recognize it, admire it, and honor it. We, members of the
fractious human race, occasionally glimpse a ray of the light that comes from
the better side of our conflicted heart, from that part of the human soul
that steps forth and chooses, for no worldly gain at all, to suffer,
sometimes to lay itself down, for the good of another; and we, half blind and
half deaf, inevitably preoccupied with the travails of our lives, try to
remember it. Today we stand on the shoulders of giants
that were no bigger than ourselves. But, we are not Christians facing
the mouth of a lion or the self-appointed inquisitors of Spain. We are
not Africans in the cruel galley of a slave ship bound for the New World.
We are not Jews, stripped of everything we have ever had and everyone we have
known, headed for a chamber of death. We know that, but for minor
hardships, we are a free people, and we are grateful for that. And, we
understand that we did not arrive at this place on our own. We look
back, and recognize all those fellow human beings who came before us; who
learned, grew to be better people, and created the place we call home.
On our better days, we will try to be like them. But always we are thankful to them, and will
always remember them. |
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First
published on Thursday, November 26, 2009.
Re-published since every fourth Wednesday of November. |
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Main Index of the Ultrapolis World Forecast & Review © Copyright 2014, The Ultrapolis Project – All Rights
Reserved.
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