Amid worries, rich blessings
Editor’s note: Thanksgiving took on a different poignancy in 2001, two months after the 9/11 terror attacks. This editorial, which ran in the Observer that Thanksgiving Day, resonates again this year in the wake of the Paris attacks, the plight of Syrian refugees and a general unease about terrorist threats – and economic insecurity – in the U.S. and around the world.
This year, in the aftermath of tragedy, we Americans can see in sharper outline our reasons to be thankful.
We remain safe, if perhaps less so than we once imagined. Overseas, the men and women of the armed services are driving home the point that the September attacks on America will not stand unanswered. At home, law enforcers and firefighters keep our homes and workplaces secure, at the risk of paying the ultimate price if necessary. We live in a country so strong that our capacity to protect ourselves and punish our enemies is not in doubt. In our current troubles we need only have the will to stay what may be a long course.
Most of us also remain prosperous. The reports from our new war front remind us of that. The same cameras that show the work of our bombs and bullets show the ghastly poverty of the people of Afghanistan. To them and to many other citizens of the world, ordinary Americans seem wealthy beyond imagination.
But there is need among us, too, and Thanksgiving is a good time to think about it. A soft economy and the fallout of war are robbing some people of their livelihoods. Even before the September attacks, aid agencies were reporting an upsurge in their work.
In 2000, the Charlotte area had the highest increase in unemployment rates among the top 51 U.S. metropolitan areas. Food stamp recipients in Mecklenburg County are at the highest level in six years. The Crisis Assistance Ministry, from March through June, served a record 7,541 people – 24 percent more than the same period a year ago. Just this week, the Loaves and Fishes food ministry called urgently for help. Donations are higher than ever, but so are calls for assistance. “We are truly seeing need at a level that we’ve never seen before,” said spokeswoman Clara Stokes.
In the early part of the 20th century North Carolina writer William Sydney Porter said that Thanksgiving is the one holiday that is “purely American.” More than Independence Day, or Memorial Day, or Veterans Day or Labor Day, said the man who wrote as O. Henry, Thanksgiving is the “one day that is ours.”
On this day, so rooted in our culture and our history and our faith, we make quiet moments in our hectic rush through the calendar to reflect on how fortunate we are. For all our faults as a nation, and for all our unmet challenges, we live in a place of peace and plenty.
O. Henry might have added that Americans are giving people. Generosity is part of our national character. We are the nation that drops food from warplanes.
Thus Thanksgiving, in its capacity as a uniquely American holiday, is a time for sharing our blessings as well as savoring them. The 2001 edition of this holiday is an occasion not only for being thankful but for saying so – with a word to a soldier or a police officer; with a bag of groceries to Loaves and Fishes, and then next week another; with an extra contribution to your house of worship or favorite charity.
Someone said that blessings hoarded are eventually used up and lost, but that blessings shared return again and again. Today, and tomorrow, and in the weeks and months ahead, find a way to share with those who have less or are sacrificing more. It’s the very best thank-you.
This story was originally published November 25, 2015 at 6:00 PM with the headline "Amid worries, rich blessings."