Happy Thanksgiving!

I wish to extend a Happy Thanksgiving to readers of RINOcracy.com, but this year a little more might be said.

It has been very sad to see and hear accounts of bitter conflicts among families and friends generated by the recent election. According to reports, many families have found it necessary to rearrange Thanksgiving plans or even to cancel a celebration of the day altogether. We have not seen such painful circumstances since the dark days of the Vietnam War. Clearly, it is a time to seek reconciliation.

I hope that those who do gather together for Thanksgiving might set aside political differences, and focus on the the spirit of the day. Whatever one’s view of the incoming administration, and however difficult one’s personal situation, we all have much for which to be thankful. If you find that difficult to accept, try, just for a moment, to imagine yourself a resident of Aleppo. And, to borrow from John Donne, ask not on whom the bombs fall, they fall on thee and me.

If politics must be discussed, let them be explored with goodwill and mutual respect. However passionately felt our differences may be, there is more to bind us together than to tear us apart. On Sunday, the bulletin in our local church included a timely quotation from Psalm 133, “How very good and pleasant it is when kindred live together in unity.” Surely, that aspiration is worth pursuing as best we can.

Finally, Ogden Nash once observed that humor is “hope’s companion in arms” and that “it is a shield, a weapon and a survival kit.” In that spirit, I offer a very silly (and quite unpolitical) poem that I wrote several years ago and recently rediscovered. If it brings a brief smile to anyone’s Thanksgiving table, it will have done its job.

 

A THANKSGIVING TALE

(Or Be Careful What You Bless)

The Day of the Turkey had come at last

To break the long autumnal fast.

The guest of honor had lost his feathers

And sadly sounded his last gobble.

We took up knife and fork and spoon

In hopes of gorging without a bobble.

The gastronomic hero of this epic fable,

Lay silent on his platter, atop the groaning table,

As we bowed our heads for solemn grace.

But then the bird began to speak and even sat upright:

“You asked God’s blessings for those in need,

Well, that is me, indeed, indeed, and I am taking flight!”

And away went the turkey, not exactly in flight,

But he hopped and he slid right out of our sight.

So then we were left with potatoes, and salads and veggies,

Oven-hot rolls with butter and jam and two kinds of pies

Our feast was foreshortened, but still more than ample.

And as for the turkey, “Happy Thanksgiving” is now what HE cries.