Friday, Nov. 25, 2011

John Spevak: When it's hard to give thanks

For many people, Thanksgiving is over and done today. For some people this year, it might not have been celebrated at all.

For many who gave thanks yesterday, thoughts of appreciation have vanished today like a shadow at sundown. The big deal today is bargains.

Many of us have descended into the darkness of Black Friday -- an apt name to describe the crowds of people willing to push and shove for the best deal.

Yesterday for some of us, however, the experience wasn't colorful; it was bleak. Some of us had a hard time giving thanks. Bitterness might have been the prevailing mode. And I can understand.

Hundreds of people in Los Banos are in some form of foreclosure. Hundreds of people in Los Banos are unemployed -- some of them recently laid off because a corporation felt its big store here wasn't making enough profit.

Some people are not only without work but without a home. The number of homeless in Los Banos has increased, and the weather is getting colder.

All around us in the media are reports of various kinds of evils: greed, corruption, molestation, pedophilia, shootings, incivility, infidelity, abandonment, sarcasm, natural and man-made disasters, global economic collapses, predictions of the end of the world.

And when we turn the page, change the channel, or click on a new screen, what do we get as a relief from discouragement and despair? Trivia, bling, trifles, minutia, and pomposity. The irrelevant and inconsequential.

In this climate, how can we give thanks? For what can we truly be thankful?

Upon reflection, there are still reasons to be grateful.

For those of us lucky to be citizens of the United States (generally through no effort of our own), we can indeed be thankful for our freedoms -- of speech, religion, the press, and more, articulated in the Bill of Rights.

We can be grateful for people like Jefferson, Madison, Adams and Washington, who out of the chaos of a revolution fashioned a constitution that guaranteed these freedoms.

And we can be thankful for the men and women who have served in the military and protected those freedoms and our peace at home, especially in the face of Nazism, totalitarianism and terrorism.

We can also be grateful for beauty, especially within nature. This is a time of year In Los Banos when we can appreciate color.

Back east, the trees are bare. Here, leaves are now displaying color, and although the deep reds and bright oranges are rare, we have a dozen shades of yellow that on a bright day gleam with sunlight.

Besides peace, freedom and beauty, I think we can be most grateful for goodness. On some days goodness may be hard to find, but it is present.

On days when our bodies hurt, when everyone seems to be inconsiderate, when nothing seems to be going right, goodness can still be found. Maybe we have to look carefully to find it. Maybe it just springs forth out of nowhere.

I had an experience of unexpected goodness the other day -- in Reno, of all places. I drove up there earlier this month to help my son Mike, daughter-in-law Karen and their three children get through a challenging time.

Their home is equipped with sprinklers that activate in fires -- a good plan, which goes one step beyond smoke alarms. Recently, however, a sprinkler in their home activated in the middle of night for no particular reason.

The sprinkler couldn't be turned off for more than an hour, not only drenching the room where the sprinkler is located, but also streaming and leaking into five other rooms in the house.

Fortunately, my son's family has good homeowner's insurance; nevertheless they had to move out of their home so contractors could begin the work of removing and replacing soaked drywall and carpets.

The family moved into a motel and eventually found a rental home until the reconstruction is finished. They do have access to three rooms in their home that were not affected by the water, including the kitchen and living room.

One day, into the chaos of their soaked home came Dina, a friend of theirs. While my son's family was sorting through stuff piled in the three unaffected rooms, Dina brought a large tray of lasagna she had baked from scratch, a loaf of French bread, a freshly tossed salad, various beverages, and warm homemade chocolate chip cookies.

Dina's dinner delivery was an unsolicited act of kindness, an example of goodness that sprang forth spontaneously. For my son's family, sharing with Dina and her daughter Abbi a hearty meal made with love was almost a transcendent experience. For my son's family, the natural response to that goodness was to give thanks.

Los Banos is fortunate to have many people like Reno's Dina for whom we can be thankful -- people who come forth to help, sometimes in an organized fashion, like the many churches who work to feed the hungry, and sometimes in random and surprising individual acts of kindness.

The goodness we see in others is also an intimation of the Goodness that is present in the universe, a Goodness that often requires strong faith in times of discouragement and despair, but a Goodness for which we can be thankful, even on a Black Friday

Comments on the writings of John Spevak, a 2011 California Newspaper Publishers Association's columnist award recipient, are encouraged, and can be sent to john.spevak@gmail.com.

Comments on the writings of John Spevak, a 2011 California Newspaper Publishers Association’s columnist award recipient, are encouraged, and can be sent to john.spevak@gmail.com.