Greetings!

While I try to be cognizant of the wonders of being alive and living on this beautiful planet throughout the year, it is during the holiday of Thanksgiving when those feelings are most easily expressed.   In fact, I celebrate Thanksgiving twice each year.  Once in October when Canadians express their thanks for a bountiful harvest, during which time I visit with friends, many of whom I don’t often see throughout the year and who usually spend American Thanksgiving with their families.  And then again in November, usually travelling and feasting with relatives and friends in other parts of the country.

For me it’s a personal holiday during which I focus on my family and friends.  I don’t subscribe to the Pilgrims’ Christian view that their God played a role in the 1608 kidnapping and enslaving of the Patuxet boy of about twelve years of age, named Squanto, who became tri-lingual during more than a decade living in Spain and England before returning to his homeland in order to make possible the survival of the Pilgrims and the first American Thanksgiving in 1621. This event has since contributed to the Euro-Christian belief of Manifest Destiny, which, in turn by the horrendous damage done, has led many Native Americans to consider Thanksgiving a day of mourning.

On November 15, I’ll lead our 4^th-6^th grade class in deciding which ideas/causes for fundraising or COSA for Kids projects the students want to pursue.  The following Sunday is Gary’s Intergenerational “Show and Tell,” when I hope our kids will have much to show us!  Then on the fifth and final Sunday of November I’ll lead the class again in a discussion and preparation for the Sunday Service our RE program will present on December 20.

Those of us attending the most recent Speaking of Faith get-together decided to postpone the November 17 program on “Pagans: Ancient and Modern” to allow many of us to attend the Root Beer Summit on race relations and ethnic diversity in Benton Harbor (see calendar).

On November 24, Julie Williams will host “Preserving Words and Worlds” which is described as follows:  “The Hill Museum & Monastic Library rescues manuscripts from across the centuries and across the world.  We explore this with a Benedictine monk and an Ethiopian scholar who have led some of its most intriguing work.  In their lives as in this work, the relevance of ancient manuscripts to people of the present, and the cultural cargo of the past itself, are revealed in a new light.”

On December 1, Joanne Krettek will host “TV and Parables of Our Time” which is described as follows:  “Diane Winston appreciates good television, studies it, and brings many of its creators into her religion and media classes at the University of Southern California.  In what some have called a renaissance in television drama, we examine how TV is helping us tell our story and work through great confusions in contemporary life.”

On December 8, Linda Lobik will host “The Ethics of Eating” which is described as follows:  “Barbara Kingsolver describes an adventure her family undertook to spend one year eating primarily what they could grow or raise themselves.  As a citizen and mother more than an expert, she turned her life towards questions many of us are asking.  Food, she says, is a “rare moral arena” in which the ethical choice is often the pleasurable choice.”

May all your food choices this Thanksgiving be both ethical and pleasurable!

Your DRE,

Dave Sarra