Giving Thanks

Was the "first" Thanksgiving purchased at a grocery store? Did the grateful partakers crowd around a football game? To whom and to what did they give thanks? Were I to eat my Thanksgiving meal from what grew in my little community that I have frozen, stored or preserved (with some help from sugar, vinegar and freezers) I would partake of chicken, potatoes, carrots, 4 kinds of winter squash, green beans, peas, honey, apricot jam, pickles, celery, lettuce (just picked today at the garden), parsnips, beets and apple sauce. If, as Ralph (our garden patriarch) says, "if you don't grow it, you won't eat it," were the case for you today, what would you be grateful for? Feeling gratitude for nourishment is more satisfying than a full belly and more humbling than a moment of prayer. When you say "dig in" on Thanksgiving Day, think of the earth that someone, maybe you, turned, enriched, planted, tended, and what grew from it that you might not go hungry. And if your cupboards were empty, your refrigerator bare, could you dig in to your garden? I pulled the last carrots from my garden this week and picked a parsnip and lettuce at the Community Garden. But I have room to improve. I planted garlic today because Ralph taught me if I plant garlic by Thanksgiving, I'll harvest if for Independence Day. And shouldn't our faith and gratitude precede the blessings of nourishment and freedom?