Dear Families,
Hopefully, you will get this in your Thanksgiving Texas Jewish Post and you will take time to find it. If not, cut it out and save it for next year or use the ideas on a daily basis to have a life full of gratitude.
This morning I read a favorite organization post (I get lots from all forms of Judaism and more, which is a great way to find the messages that resonate with you!). From ReformJudaism.org, the article titled A Look Into the Future at Gratitude by Rabbi Steven Stark Lowenstein was sections of a speech from a 2006 Thanksgiving service by actor and director Harold Ramis. Here are bits from the speech:
When Rabbi Lowenstein asked me to speak here tonight, I wondered what could I say to you that you couldn’t read in six or eight badly rhymed lines on a Hallmark card. And I decided that rather than elaborate on the things I’m already grateful for, I would try to articulate some of the things that I’d like to be grateful for — maybe not this year, or the next, but sometime soon. So, here’s my random list in no particular order:
I’d like to be grateful for an end to violence and a lasting peace in the Middle East that not only recognizes Israel’s right to exist, but acknowledges its miraculous social, agricultural and technological achievements …
I’d like to be grateful for the eradication of AIDS and HIV, for a medical Marshall Plan that makes education, medication, and treatment available to people all over the developing world.
And I’d like to be grateful for a system of public education that provides for all children what my kids have in our incredible school district.
And one last thing: I’d like to be grateful for a spirit of activism and personal responsibility that makes us all realize that positive change on a global scale starts with the things every one of us can do in our own families and communities.
As the Buddhists say, we owe infinite gratitude to the past, infinite service to the present, and infinite responsibility to the future.
Now, this Thanksgiving or next or whenever you are thinking of all that you are thankful for, add hopes for tomorrow…and then together make a plan to work toward at least some of those plans. Happy Thanksgiving!