On this Thanksgiving Day, we are reminded that we have the choice, each day, to reach beyond differences to help ourselves and each other to be prosperous, beyond differences. Today, as we continue to bear the fruits of the first Thanksgiving harvest in 1621, we reflect on the Native Americans showing the Pilgrims how to cultivate corn, extract sap from the maple trees, fish from the rivers, and avoid the poisonous plants of the land. We see our fundamental nature to have compassion and empathy for the welfare of all so that we can live in peace and prosperity together, with open hearts and helping hands.
Amidst political, social, cultural and economic differences, this Thanksgiving Day, we have the gift to come together. We can bring new hope, opportunity, and prosperity to the Thanksgiving table by being grateful for our differences, sharing them, and seeking the wisdom and insights that each of us hold to create a more harmonious and thriving future for all.
In many ways, we are still “separatists” seeking a harmonious future, just like those who set sail from England on the Mayflower almost 400 years ago. Those 102 passengers sought a future filled with freedom, equality and prosperity for all, despite differences in religious, social and other beliefs. Their common belief was greater— that we can live together and thrive in our differences to create a prosperous future for all, without fear, oppression, or limitation. Their role on the ship was for the welfare of all—establishing some of our earliest values of democracy.
Today, do we not continue to strive for a thriving and prosperous future as did the Pilgrims? Do we not still strive to reach out with giving and helping hands as did the Native Americans? Are these values and acts the very essence that makes the United States of America a beacon—that the “way” of America is one that is grateful for our differences so we can thrive beyond barriers to realize our unlimited and infinite potential?
Almost 400 years since the Mayflower set sail, the spirit of the United States of America is still to be free, equal and prosperous for all. It is not to assimilate, destroy, punish, or diminish difference—it is to embrace difference so we can be greater than the sum of our parts. We learn, discover and grow through the pieces of the puzzle of a greater humanity that each of us hold. We are all still sailing on one ship—the great ship, Humanity—on a journey to a greater future. Today, on our continued journey, what will be your role on this ship to a greater humanity?
This Thanksgiving, as we share one table with friends, family, and perhaps even strangers, let’s be reminded that we share one home—a United States of America—that was built on values of prospering through differences. Let’s be reminded that we share one planet and one biology—that we are one species, one humanity, striving to evolve, together. We evolve not by a “win-lose” interpretation of a Darwinian “survival of the fittest,” but by a collective notion of “survival of the species.”
It is not the “fittest individuals” who are here to survive, rather it is our “fittest collective humanity” that is here to survive and thrive. We have the choice to overcome our primitive nature that reacts from fear, and instead, act from a higher, evolved consciousness that is grateful for each other. This Thanksgiving, let’s be grateful for the pieces of the puzzle of a prosperous humanity that we each bring to the Thanksgiving table. Let’s combine the wisdom within those differences to create a most wonderful banquet that can fuel and fulfill all for the greatest evolution and benefit of all.
Our nation has always thrived through difference—it is embedded in our determined and resilient nature of higher evolution. It is our precious, aspiring human condition and the culture of our nation that gives us the gift of reaching beyond all that would defeat us, and into all that drives us to create our best lives—for ourselves, our families, our loved ones, and our communities.
At Thanksgiving time across America, we do our best to make sure that everyone has a seat at the table and a meal for which to give thanks—from our homes, to the streets, the shelters, our places of worship, community halls, public parks, open spaces, under spacious skies, across our wilderness … for “amber waves of grain, for purple mountain majesties, above the fruited plain.”
We may not have perfected this union, this “America the Beautiful,” every day throughout the year, but it is the perfect union and the most beautiful America for which we strive—the gift our Founding Fathers, the Pilgrims, Native Americans, and so many others who have come before us, gave us to perfect.
This Thanksgiving, let’s be grateful for the perfect union and the most beautiful America for which we strive. Let’s sit at the table with family, friends, loved ones, and strangers alike, and continue to seek a prosperous future for all. Just as did those who came before us and sacrificed so much, let us continue together, to explore, discover, and evolve, without fear, to reach a more free, equal, prosperous, perfect and beautiful nation and humanity for all.
Happy Thanksgiving! Let’s be grateful to all.
America the Beautiful, Words by Katharine Lee Bates (1913), Melody by Samuel Ward
O beautiful for spacious skies,
For amber waves of grain,
For purple mountain majesties
Above the fruited plain!
America! America!
God shed his grace on thee
And crown thy good with brotherhood
From sea to shining sea!
O beautiful for pilgrim feet
Whose stern impassioned stress
A thoroughfare of freedom beat
Across the wilderness!
America! America!
God mend thine every flaw,
Confirm thy soul in self-control,
Thy liberty in law!
O beautiful for heroes proved
In liberating strife.
Who more than self their country loved
And mercy more than life!
America! America!
May God thy gold refine
Till all success be nobleness
And every gain divine!
O beautiful for patriot dream
That sees beyond the years
Thine alabaster cities gleam
Undimmed by human tears!
America! America!
God shed his grace on thee
And crown thy good with brotherhood
From sea to shining sea!
O beautiful for halcyon skies,
For amber waves of grain,
For purple mountain majesties
Above the enameled plain!
America! America!
God shed his grace on thee
Till souls wax fair as earth and air
And music-hearted sea!
O beautiful for pilgrims feet,
Whose stem impassioned stress
A thoroughfare for freedom beat
Across the wilderness!
America! America!
God shed his grace on thee
Till paths be wrought through
wilds of thought
By pilgrim foot and knee!
O beautiful for glory-tale
Of liberating strife
When once and twice,
for man's avail
Men lavished precious life!
America! America!
God shed his grace on thee
Till selfish gain no longer stain
The banner of the free!
O beautiful for patriot dream
That sees beyond the years
Thine alabaster cities gleam
Undimmed by human tears!
America! America!
God shed his grace on thee
Till nobler men keep once again
Thy whiter jubilee!
http://www.usa-flag-site.org/song-lyrics/america/