Today we think about all the things we are thankful for. Chicken Wrangler Sara and I are so grateful for our readers.
As you gather with your family and friends today, we offer this Irish blessing for you and yours.
Thanksgiving arrives on Thursday making this week filled with family reunions, food, fun, travel, football games, Black Friday, and being thankful.
Not necessarily in that order.
The way we celebrate things today is quite different from how Pilgrims celebrated Thanksgiving feasts.
Historically, Pilgrims in The Commonwealth of Virginia held Thanksgiving services beginning in 1607. Days of prayer, not days of feasting, but services deeply grounded in religious beliefs and gratitude to their Heavenly Father.
Our national holiday stems from the feast held in the autumn of 1621 by the Pilgrims and the Wampanoag Indians to celebrate the colony’s first successful harvest. The colonist didn’t call it Thanksgiving, though.
Thanksgiving to them was a religious holiday in which they would go to church and thank God for a specific event. The activities that autumn of 1621 – dancing, singing secular songs, playing games – wouldn’t have been allowed. Not religious. The feast was a secular celebration, so it never would have been considered a thanksgiving in the pilgrims’ minds.
Abraham Lincoln’s 1863 proclamation for a national day of “Thanksgiving and Praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the Heavens.” established what we do today.
Interesting that the basis for our celebration remained the same as the early colonist feasts – thankfulness.
As you go about the preparations this week, spend some time thinking about the origins of the holiday and all the reasons you have to be thankful.
Blog by Chicken Wrangler Sara
We contain our pack of dachshunds in the kitchen with a baby gate.
Every evening we take the gate down and allow the dogs to go into their kennels in the living room to sleep. Occasionally the dogs will knock the gate down when we are not home and roam the house.
All except for Bella – she is terrified of the gate. She sits in the middle of the kitchen frozen in fear.
After years of stepping over the gate, we decided to invest in a walk-through gate. This would cut down on the number of falls for those of us who are less coordinated or who have weak ankles. (That would be Chicken Wrangler Sara.)
Beekeeper Brian ordered an easy step, metal walk-through safety gate.
Once it was installed, life became easier for everyone – except Bella.
The first night we opened the gate to let the dogs go into their kennels, Bella refused.
Rachel was prepared for her reaction. She coaxed Bella over the gate with treats.
Bella has grown accustomed to the gate. Only once in a while does she balk at going over it.
Bella is a special dog. She fits right in on Miller Farm.
Winnie the Pooh was a favorite of my youngest daughter. Every nap time we read a chapter from A.A. Milne’s books and then at bedtime we re-read the same chapter.
The beautifully crafted stories of Christopher Robin’s adventures captured my daughter’s imagination. Ernest H. Shephard’s illustrations brought the tales to life.
The wisdom of Pooh and his companions was sometimes beyond her young experience, but Milne’s never failed to impress me with the compassion and insight his characters imparted with humor.
Piglet shares wise words in the graphic above. Though our hearts be small, like his, we can fill them with gratitude.
So what’s in your heart today?
Gratitude, I’m sad to say, is not part of most people’s natural disposition.
I understand. It’s hard to be thankful when all around us is hurt and pain and disappointment.
Gratitude doesn’t make sense, but it’s a discipline needed to remind ourselves of the many reasons we have to be grateful, which in turn will push off negativity.
Being grateful is a choice. If you’ve lived most of your life NOT focusing on gratitude, it’s not so simple to change that perspective.
Developing an attitude of gratitude can take time and effort. One way to begin that change is to write a daily gratitude list.
It’s hard at first, especially on those terrible, horrible, no good, very bad days, but over time a daily gratitude list can give you an attitude adjustment.
Where to start? How to start? What to put on your list? Here are some suggestions:
Grab a pencil or pen, some paper, and write out a list of things you’re thankful for. The kinesthetic experience of actually writing is valuable for two reasons:
Chose a realistic number of things to list. Begin with two or three at first and work your way up to whatever number makes you feel comfortable.
Identify things around you to put on your list. Chose simple things like you woke up. Your house. The sunrise/sunset. There is so much to be thankful for, if we only have eyes to see.
Fake it, if necessary, until the habit is established. You may not actually feel grateful for anything at first, pretend. Before long you’ll discover gratitude is all around. Next, you’ll learn gratitude grows the more you use it.
If writing a gratitude list isn’t for you, try grateful beads. That’s what I use.
Grateful beads are a string of the ten beads that serve as a guide to being thankful. Three beads for three people who touch your life. Six beads for six things, events, and occurrences and the final bead to remind you to give thanks to your creator.
And in case you were wondering, this is my grateful bead list for today:
Like-minded friends and encouragers: Jody and Millie
My husband, who is my biggest fan and strongest supporter
Good health
Living in the forest where I can enjoy nature
Being able to share stories with readers
Readers who write to tell me how much they enjoy my stories
Old church hymns
Last, and most important, Grace — God’s love that cannot be explained (only surrendered to)
Here’s my challenge for you: Whether you use a gratitude list or grateful beads, find some time today, wherever you are, and whatever you’re doing, to be grateful.
What would be on your gratitude list? Share in the comments.
Today we celebrate Veterans Day. Do you know why?
This short video from the History Channel explains the origins.
According to Cynthia Ozick, “We often take for granted the very things that most deserve our gratitude.”
Don’t let that happen today!
Say “thank you” to a friend, relative, or co-worker who is a U.S. military veteran or active member of the military then pause a moment to remember the brave men and women who sacrificed their all to make America the greatest nation on Earth.
GRATEFUL and THANKFUL are adjectives describing deep appreciation. Exhibiting both adjectives causes GRATITUDE.
In this month of emphasis on being thankful, I’m an author who is grateful to and thankful for readers who read my books.
Use the comments below and/or on Twitter with these hashtags #grateful #gratitude to share what you’re thankful for today.
Blogging about thankfulness and gratitude in November is cliché, but there’s no better time than the month when our whole nation pauses and gives thanks to focus our thoughts on thankfulness.
Ralph Waldo Emerson once said that in order to achieve contentment, we should “cultivate the habit of being grateful for every good thing that comes to you, and to give thanks continuously.”
As we celebrate the coming holiday in America, most of us will have a thankful attitude on Thanksgiving Day. Too often, though, our attention wanes for the rest of the year. We should seek out things daily to be thankful for, i.e. give thanks continuously as Emerson suggests.
Here are two ways to focus an attitude of thankfulness beyond one Thursday in November.
Surprised? In our plugged-in culture, it’s impossible to avoid social media no matter how hard you try so why not use your posts, pictures, videos, and tweets to cultivate thankfulness on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. Heaven knows we get enough of wars, earthquakes, floods, fires, sick children, murdered spouses and, lately, politics.
It seems the more suffering and mayhem, the more mass media coverage. Yet research shows the opposite: good news spreads faster and farther than disasters and sob stories.
By sharing positive, uplifting posts, memes, and videos, you encourage attitudes of thankfulness in yourself and others.
According to Henri Frederic Amiel, gratitude is the completion of thankfulness. Writing down what you’re thankful for everyday reinforces positive thoughts and grateful feelings.
We’ll explore gratitude lists more next week. For now, can you think of ways you can foster thankfulness?
We recently drove the San Juan Scenic Byway, also known as the Million Dollar Highway. It’s a spectacular ride if you don’t mind steep cliffs, narrow lanes, zero guardrails, and hairpin “S” curves cut directly into the sides of mountains.
While we human passengers were white-knuckled and breathless, our little Maltese gazed out the window contently enjoying the ride.
Made me think of this quote.
If your life is on a path filled with hazards and challenges, relax and enjoy the journey like Buster.
Our story worlds become tangible to us as writers. A video plays in our head as we write. We see the setting; we feel the emotions. Our characters become genuine people moving in an authentic world we’ve created.
While our story worlds are real to us, the reader enters a story world as a visitor exploring what we’ve created.
Interruptions can happen. The telephone rings, a text comes in, or the doorbell rings. Distractions we choose to ignore or respond to.
If a reader is truly engrossed, they will return to the story world just as we return to our writing.
Not so if the writing itself causes the distractions. Then readers turn from explorers into critics or worse yet, quit reading.
Beth Hill (The Editor’s Blog) says “Interruptions from inside the story world become a part of that world and influence our [readers’] reactions to it.” She offers a list of fiction interrupters that writers should avoid.
These are the interrupters that jar me as a reader.
You can find Ms. Hill’s blog about reader interruptions here. Her list is longer than mine, but neither list contains everything that can distract a reader from a story.
What pulls you from a story when you’re reading?
