Thanksgiving in the time of COVID

 

I have struggled to come up with the appropriate Thanksgiving message to share with my friends and family.

The challenges surrounding this year’s holiday are unique and troubling. A national pandemic rages, dividing families, isolating loved ones and destroying lives – both economic and physical. Many of us have lost faith in our country and in our fellow countrymen. We yearn to rediscover that faith and to be reunited in spirit and action.

Many of you will be dining without the comforting presence of family and friends today. I wish you peace and safety in these perilous times. Many of you are hurting, economically, emotionally and physically. May time and circumstance rescue you from those troubles and grant you better and brighter days ahead.

The Gunnels Manse still is quiet on this Thanksgiving morning. Likely, it will remain as such for most of the day. In the stillness, my mind imagines holidays of old – the laughter of children, the noisy chatter of family and friends, the clinking of glasses and rattle of silverware. Sounds of joy and love and comradeship. Such days will return. Faith in that will sustain us in these dark, terrible days.

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!