On Being Grateful.....

     My wife told me that I should blog about gratitude today.   Today, of course, is Thanksgiving and commemorates the day of our first (and last) Caucasian and Native American communal feast which celebrated a sharing and appreciation of our diversity and newly arrived at cooperation...shortly, thereafter we plundered their land, raped their women, stole their children and  defiled their connection with source and imposed Christianity.  I "should" celebrate Thanksgiving but something rings a bit eerie.
      Then, my wife read me a tribute some one wrote in the local paper.  They were thankful for sight, because some people wake up blind; they were thankful that they had hearing, because some people greeted the day without being able to hear; they were thankful for the ability to walk because some people wake up to start the day without this ability, etc.  They probably forgot for to be thankful for the gift of thinking and expression because some people wake up without the ability to express and think coherently.  Of course, these "feel good" diatribes always credit god (whoever she may be).  I believe the missive is "There but for the grace of god, go I...."  Frankly, god is neither responsible for your sight or someone else's lack of it or for your lack of challenge or someone else's profound challenge.  She didn't make it happen nor will she make it go away.  So I found  being grateful for happenstances in human existence (either positive or negative) an energetic depletion. Anyway, I always believe that the more challenged a person is, the more pure spirit they are; they are  more godlike.  Things are the way they are and our humanity derives from a simple acceptance of that moment which does not last that long in the scheme of things.

         So, being an ingrate, I choose to blog about what I honor in this life:

• I honor my severely challenged son (my daughter dislikes the word "profoundly disabled" so I honor her wish).  I honor the truth that he chose, before this particular existence, to have me as his father, Sharon as his mother and Aimee as his sister. I am humbled and try to live up to the immensity of his choice.
• I honor my wife who is deeply committed to Adam's recovery and who has eloquently written about his journey.  I honor the reality that before this existence she chose Adam and I to join her in her quest for truth and genuine humanity.  I honor her unflinching commitment to Adam and to her helping me develop a healthy disdain for allopathic medicine.
• I honor my daughter, Aimee, who also chose before this existence to walk the path with Adam, Sharon and I and to share the trauma and the joy of this experience, but also to rapidly learn about the nature of many people and about true love.
• I honor the reality that this family of four, all for different reasons, chose to travel this journey to a higher level of enlightenment together...I know there are no others that I would want to walk with.
• I honor those few humans who I have encountered who are people of their word.  They always do what they say, even if the saying was "near impossible."  Our word defines who we are, it is the crux of our existence, it is "I".  It is god...."In the beginning was the word, and word was god..."
• I honor our commitment to fully understand why we allow certain people into our lives,why we attract certain types of people into our lives and why we have to let go of some people with due deliberation.

         So, I rejoice in the fact that we have chosen to walk an uncommon  road together.  "Word" is the important facet which defines our human journey.  Teilhard de Chardin said it best, "We are spiritual beings having a human experience."  I honor all who have chosen the "road less traveled..."