By Padmini Arhant
A special day to thank the people for their love, compassion and actions that positively impact the recipient’s life. In this respect, the nation is thankful to the brave men and women in harm’s way for their sacrifices in many different ways, most importantly their precious life. Within the community, there are many benevolent individuals dedicating their time and resources for others’ welfare. They deserve acknowledgment by the members. Then the family unit, where the relationship is strengthened with genuine care, affection and understanding for each other unconditionally recognized in a subtle or profound manner.
Rest available @http://www.padminiarhant.com
Thank you.
Padmini Arhant
Happy Thanksgiving Day
How magnificent is the Lord Almighty
And forgiving His glory
Padre Nuestros en Los Cieolos above
Praises we give you with our undying love
Your hand has guided us yet another year
Today with families we gather and share
Hours of joy over a specially prepared meal
And give thanks for all the things we feel
No worries will overcome us today
Kneeling together and to you, pray
Sorrows we forget as you descend
Give us your blessings and our problems mend
It’s great Lord to give you thanks for family
Very great for friends, our jobs, health and opportunity
I know Lord some will gave you thanks for their Governments
National Organizations, Churches and resolved arguments
God our thanks is as varied as you have made us all
Diverse as the snow flakes on the winter snowfall
And still one thing is possible, where ever we may stay
You God make it possible to have a Happy Thanksgiving Day!
Many people want to go to heaven but many people don't want to put forth the effort to practice the physical responsibilities that will get us here and I'll be the first to say that "the right activities" take commitment, persistence and practice. And this is taking into consideration that you believe that heaven does exist! I find that fighting for Democratic principals isn't any more simple.
Obama has a lot of responsibility since he came into office. Freedom doesn't come free, people who are going to Afghanistan is requiring us to share sacrifices to help them get to their victorious goals.
I am not a hawk, quite the contrary, however we need to get our butts out of Afghanistan and Iraq remembering that we owe the people in these countries those promises we made . . . getting out and leaving the people whole isn't an easy task but requires sustainability.
Tea Party members are projecting all that they can to be a force of negative force towards Obama. They are against any progress coming from him. The Republicans are looking for the unpopular war to continue, they are energized by the unemployment numbers falling, they aren't supporting the healthcare insurance reform because their politicial leaders are receiving huge contributions and donations when they run for office. This doesn't excuse those Democrats to too are fighting the insurance options and watering down the initial national healthcare bill. Whistleblower Wendell Potter, the former CIGNA marketing executive has said, "if there isn't a public option included in the insurance reform, then tha insurance companies have won" the healthcare battle. Many of us heard this and we believe since Potter wrote many of the policies that the insurance companies practice, that he should know truth from fiction.
Just another obstacle that OFA will have to overcome! It is profoundly amazing how so many people sat eight years watching our country go into absolute free fall and said nothing. And now that we finally have an opportunity to apply wisdom, commitment and arriving at the truth, the masses want to trash President Obama and those still seeking change. We have always understood that change is gradual, requires time and persistence through: Voter registration, phone calling, writing letters to our politicians, letters to the editor, petition signing, community education, video presentations, resolutions, rallies, subject events, voting smart and continual strategic action... May God provide Obama the guidance and wisdom to continue making decisions that lead to international alliances and to win the battle in Afghanistan and Iraq. OFA understands that there is no substitute to "victory". . . Obama has a strong hand to play and we hope he can find the money, resources and sustainability to pull our nation through . . .
Happy Thanksgiving . . . Peace out, Minerva and Todd Hoover, Santa Clarita Valley
Tomorrow, Thanksgiving Day, Victims all over the world, let Pray to The God. Thank him for standing on the Right, Just and Fair.The God hears our crying, supports us, helps us.Tomorrow, I will thank the God -- for all the wisdom, courage, help, support, and love he has brought into my life.Tomorrow, I will also thank those who have concerned our suffering and have tried to help us -- for all the wisdom, courage, help, support and love they has brought into my life.We are from different countries, different cultures, different religions, different races, different families..........We reflect great diversity on the earth.But we have common thread that we can share.The God lets everyone on the earth live together here, coexistence and prosperity!!The God lets victims work together, help each other.So in this season of thanks giving, let pray The God together.Let us express our gratitude to The God, to Everyone, and pray for a bright future we are creating together.Yours Sincerely,SoleilmavisVideo: God helped mind control victim
http://peacepink.ning.com/video/god-helped-mind-control-victim The Bible--Proverbshttp://peacepink.ning.com/notes/index/show?noteKey=God_Bans_Mind_Control%2FDEW_weapons_abuses_and_tortures
This video says all I can think of.
http://www.youtube.com/user/divajc#p/u/14/28KppgdX4qc
Love and music,
Diva JC
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Alternative EnergySource: David Apperson
url: http://veterans.barackobama.com/page/community/tag/alternative-energy
After loosing the elections to Obama. John Mccain goes home with hope of having a wonderful Thanksgiving with his immediate family. Mccain flew into his hometown on his private jet but when he reached the airport, his usual guest didn’t greet him. There weren’t any balloons, the bands weren’t playing or crowds weren’t cheering. This was unusual, he didn’t even see Sarah Palin. He looked into the distance but all he could see was snow and his cold breath in the air. He looked at his secret service and even they looked shocked about what was happening. For 40 years his town greeted him every Thanksgiving, so WHAT HAPPENED.
He looked at his wife and gave her a smile then said, “Moneys been tight this year for everyone baby. Maybe the town couldn’t afford a celebration this year”
Mrs. Mccain looked at her husband with her devilish grind, “You’re probably right baby. Everyone can’t afford the things we have!”
Mccain grabbed his wife arm and helped her through the snow. He looked at his wife then said, “At least we still have our limo!”
Mccain’s limo was black and warm inside. The bar was filled with Champaign, just like years before. His secret service followed the limo in their black Yukon. Mccain could see despair in his wife’s eyes. He looked at her and said this while he rubbed her thigh, “Baby, I’m still your little P.O.W, right”
Mrs. Mccain’s wife batted her eyes then ran her finger thru Mccain’s hair and gave him a hug as he continued to rub her thigh, “You are my little soldier. Don’t worry!”
Mccain leaned back in his leather seats proud of what he just heard. But when he looked out his window it all disappeared, “What’s going on here?”, Mccain yelled.
Mrs. Mccain rushed to the window because she wanted to see. But what she saw she couldn’t believe, “Why do everyone in your town have Obama campaign signs in there yards!’
Mrs. Mccain looked at John and she immediately knew he was scarred. His eye lit up like a deer staring into your headlights, “I can’t believe it. My own people voted for Obama. What’s going on?”
Alarms kept ringing in John’s ears as he looked out the window and things slowly started to become clear. Most of the people he knew was in Obama’s below 250 thousand dollar tax bracket. While Mccain was trying to help the rich, he was forgetting about the poor. This is something that Republicans have done thousands of times before. As Mccain’s thoughts lingered as his wife started to scream.
Mrs. Mccain, “What the hell did you do? You lost to a black man. Now our lives are ruined. No one will ever remember you for being a prisoner of war. Now everyone will look at us and laugh. And our friends want come to our parties or to any of our functions because you were the first White Republican Man to loose to a Black Democrat.”
Mccain couldn’t believe what was ringing in his ears. He looked at his wife because he felt like he had to make things clear, “LooK!”, pointing, “This race wasn’t about color. I lost to a great man. A-----smart guy!”
Mrs. Mccain laughed, “You lost to a Smart Guy… You lost to a great man”, She paused, “You didn’t say that when you were running around calling him a terrorist. You didn’t say that when you made allegations that Obama was a socialist or he wasn’t fit to be President for the last 23 months”
John looked his wife dead in her eyes, “Now you listen here. I only said those things because your family was about to be taxed because of his policies, if your family loose money then I loose money. I didn’t marry you for only your body, Baby. I married you for power and your family seen me as an opportunity to increase their power.”
Mrs. Mccain was furious about what she just heard. Her eyes was red and her vision was blurried, “You little short dwarf. I know you are angry right now, so I’m going to act like I didn’t hear what you just said. But remember one thing! I made you and I’ll break you… Believe it..You had a chance to get power but you lost, I never lost and I can changed your world with a flick of the wrist”
The Musical Patriot
“Showt to Jehovah, al the earth”: Hymns of the Conquest
By DAVID YEARSLEY
Edward Winslow’s Good Newes from New-England published in 1624 in London begins its account in November of 1621. There is no word of the first Thanksgiving. That didn’t happen until 1623 and was a day of devout prayer and penance not one of overt celebration in the modern sense.
The Good Newes begins not with happy feasting between natives and newcomers, but with the threat of war: “the Great people of Nanohigganset, which are reported to be many thousands strong, began to breath forth many threats against us; the common talke of our neighbour Indians on all sides was of the preparation they made to come against us.” Rather than bringing gifts of “Indian Corne,” oysters, and venison, the natives were filling their quivers with new arrows. This Good Newes is bad news for the locals, and, eventually, for people across the continent...........
ENTIRE ARTICLE - http://www.counterpunch.org/yearsley11282008.html
By MIKE ELY
It is a deep thing that people still celebrate the survival of the early colonists at Plymouth — by giving thanks to the Christian God who supposedly protected and championed the European invasion. The real meaning of all that, then and now, needs to be continually excavated. The myths and lies that surround the past are constantly draped over the horrors and tortures of our present.
Every schoolchild in the United States has been taught that the Pilgrims of the Plymouth Colony invited the local Indians to a major harvest feast after surviving their first bitter year in New England. But the real history of Thanksgiving is a story of the murder of indigenous people and the theft of their land by European colonialists – and of the ruthless ways of capitalism. In mid-winter 1620 the English ship Mayflower landed on the North American coast, delivering 102 exiles. The original native people of this stretch of shoreline had already been killed off. In 1614 a British expedition had landed there. When they left they took 24 Indians as slaves and left smallpox behind. Three years of plague wiped out between 90 and 96 per cent of the inhabitants of the coast, destroying most villages completely..........
ENTIRE ARTICE - http://www.counterpunch.org/ely11282008.html
By ALEXANDER COCKBURN
There have been bleaker Thanksgivings, to be sure, than the one Americans celebrated yesterday. The circumstances of the storied first feast in 1621, (very interestingly discussed on this site this weekend by David Yearsley and Mike Ely) on the Massachusetts shoreline actually took place in the ruined Indian village of Pawtuxet. As every schoolchild knows, the Wampanoag Indians brought the little band of Puritans wild turkeys. Cortez had shipped turkeys back to Europe from Mexico and a decade later, by the 1530s they were well-known in Germany and England, hailed at the festive board as part of tradition immemorial. The Puritans had domestic turkeys with them in New England, gazing out at their wild relatives, offered by the Indians who regarded them as somewhat second-rate as food. They also brought along with corn and seasonal squashes.
The Indians had scant reason to rejoice since their numbers had been reduced by some 95 per cent by smallpox introduced in 1614 by an earlier British expedition. If he heard the thanks raised to heaven by the Puritan leader John Winthrop, the English-speaking Indian known as Squanto probably declined to translate it for his fellows.........
ENTIRE ARTICLE - http://www.counterpunch.org/cockburn11282008.html
For many around the world, there is not much to be thankful for this year when people have lost their businesses, jobs, homes or a chance at an education, when retirement savings of the working class and the accumulated wealth of the well-to-do have dwindled, when terrorists have struck again at the center of a free civilization.Leaders around the world have roundly condemned the killings in Mumbai, India, yet none of them have condemned the gun manufacturers who have profited from selling firearms to these terrorists.And who exactly are these terrorists? Are they like the Joker in Batman who enjoys killing, unmotivated by greed or ideology, or do they exist merely as the “bad cops” to lend purpose to the “good cops”? Or do they have a simple agenda? To have a voice in their existence, to have their own “thanksgiving” with their families and friends and to have hope for a better future for their children?I am not a sympathizer of terrorists. They have no right to take the lives of others, to cause others injury, to bring fear to those who only wish to go about their lives peaceably. They should be condemned for their action, and so should GW Bush be condemned for waging war in Iraq.This deterioration we face, from the environment to the economy, from our safety to our freedoms, is a result of our individual action or indifference and cannot be reversed by military might, as many in power might want to believe. When the resources of this earth are used and trashed for our immediate gratification and convenience, when we kill each other, our civilization is headed for extinction. Finding another planet to “start over” is a waste of time and pride, for we are unable to divorce our shortcomings from ourselves even though we are capable of removing ourselves from one planet to perhaps exist in another.Civilization cannot be perfected by a change of venue. Evil is in the hearts and minds of most. Those who are “well meaning” and whose extreme ideologies lie on opposite sides and bring them into conflict with each other. Both sides are evil, evil that is in shades of gray and not easily defined, evil that is often cloaked in self-righteousness. In the words of Justice Louis Brandeis: “The greatest dangers to liberty lurk in insidious encroachment by men of zeal, well meaning [unto themselves] but without understanding.”Understanding is not difficult to master but difficult to accept. It is the only means for compromise since understanding is rooted in reason rather than passion. Reason ought to give those who were born with talents and abilities the responsibilities to inspire and help those who were born without. Yet, as simple as this concept maybe, it is one that has not been internalized by many of the best and the brightest or many who are in positions of power, for their minds have been poisoned by the notion that survival is for the fittest. They forget, however, that they are hypocrites, for they are not subscribers to such a notion. They, of all people, are likely the first ones to clamor for medical help when they are ill and the last ones to put at risk their own lives to advance their agendas or accept death even when they are at their weakest.In this group are supposedly “the capitalists,” who are the most vocal proponents of capitalism (the type that is reserved only for the poor and the working class) and the most shameless benefactors of socialism (the type that covers only the rich and the powerful) when they are themselves victims of a free market. So do “the warmongers” and “the terrorists” who are opposite sides of the same coin belong here, for they are willing to go engage in battles and sacrifice the lives of others in vain attempts to compensate for their personal defects or to give themselves worth based on their war-making abilities. People in both these groups can be ruthlessly self-serving. For them, giving thanks to those less capable, less powerful or generally “lesser” than they, or to those under their dictates, seems like an empty gesture when their satisfaction and successes depend upon the expense of others.
Thanksgiving is an American tradition, but the spirit of giving thanks is universal. It ought to stem from an appreciation of life, of this planet and universe, of logic and reason, and end with enjoying and being thankful for the company of one another. From the beginning until the end, in that brief period during our brief simultaneous physical existence relative to time, we ought to learn about and appreciate the differences that make us unique, and be in awe of the similarities that connect us to the flow of humanity.
by Melanie Conklin @ commondreams.org
When Bobbi Webster, a member of the Oneida Nation, talks about being thankful, she mentions the strawberry harvest, tapping maple trees for syrup, the summer solstice and seasonal change. Feasting, family and giving thanks are the root of multiple thanksgiving celebrations spread throughout the year for the Oneida and other American Indians.
"This time of year we all celebrate Thanksgiving, but we have 13 ceremonies of thanksgiving ongoing throughout the year," Webster said. "Sometimes you have to take the best of the worlds around you, draw from all the cultures. Thanksgiving is a time we see what we have in common."
But because of the roots of today's holiday in the early encounters between European settlers and native populations, there's a multiplicity of viewpoints among American Indians about Thanksgiving.........
ENTIRE ARTICLE - http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2008/11/27-1
Mark Anthony Rolo, left, and his nephew Nick Rolo pick out a bagged turkey at Sentry Hilldale for their Thanksgiving family gathering. (Wisconsin State Journal)
Justice for Indian Country
Thanksgiving We Can Believe In
By STEVE HENDRICKS @ counterpunch.com
Seven years before Tisquantum (Squanto, to most of us) helped the Pilgrims recover from their disastrous first winter in America, he was kidnapped by an English cod fisher and fur trader who was diversifying into the human trade. Tisquantum and other stock were shipped to Spain under hatch, a murderous passage, and most of the survivors were sold into slavery. Tisquantum was among the lucky, rescued by friars before he could be auctioned, though perhaps held a few years to ensure his salvation by Christ. We do not know how Tisquantum made his way to London and finagled a job as guide and interpreter on a ship bound for New England. But in 1619, four years after his abduction, he returned to America only to find his town of Patuxet in ruins and nearly all its 2,000 Wampanoags dead of European pox. When the Pilgrims arrived the following winter, they founded Plymouth on Patuxet's remains--a cruel symbol, that.......
ENTIRE ARTICLE - http://www.counterpunch.org/hendricks11272008.html
Remarks of President-elect Barack Obama Thursday, November 27th, 2008
Good morning.
Nearly 150 years ago, in one of the darkest years of our nation's history, President Abraham Lincoln set aside the last Thursday in November as a day of Thanksgiving. America was split by Civil War. But Lincoln said in his first Thanksgiving decree that difficult times made it even more appropriate for our blessings to be -- and I quote -- "gratefully acknowledged as with one heart and one voice by the whole American people."
This week, the American people came together with family and friends to carry on this distinctly American tradition. We gave thanks for loved ones and for our lasting pride in our communities and our country. We took comfort in good memories while looking forward to the promise of change.
But this Thanksgiving also takes place at a time of great trial for our people.
Across the country, there were empty seats at the table, as brave Americans continue to serve in harm’s way from the mountains of Afghanistan to the deserts of Iraq. We honor and give thanks for their sacrifice, and stand by the families who endure their absence with such dignity and resolve.
At home, we face an economic crisis of historic proportions. More and more Americans are worried about losing a job or making their mortgage payment. Workers are wondering if next month's paycheck will pay next month's bills. Retirees are watching their savings disappear, and students are struggling with the cost of tuition.
It's going to take bold and immediate action to confront this crisis. That's why I'm committed to forging a new beginning from the moment I take office as President of the United States. Earlier this week, I announced my economic team. This talented and dedicated group is already hard at work crafting an Economic Recovery Plan that will create or save 2.5 million new jobs, while making the investments we need to fuel long-term economic growth and stability.
But this Thanksgiving, we are reminded that the renewal of our economy won't come from policies and plans alone -- it will take the hard work, innovation, service, and strength of the American people.
I have seen this strength firsthand over many months -- in workers who are ready to power new industries, and farmers and scientists who can tap new sources of energy; in teachers who stay late after school, and parents who put in that extra hour reading to their kids; in young Americans enlisting in a time of war, seniors who volunteer their time, and service programs that bring hope to the hopeless.
It is a testament to our national character that so many Americans took time out this Thanksgiving to help feed the hungry and care for the needy. On Wednesday, I visited a food bank at Saint Columbanus Parish in Chicago. There -- as in so many communities across America -- folks pitched in time and resources to give a lift to their neighbors in need. It is this spirit that binds us together as one American family -- the belief that we rise and fall as one people; that we want that American Dream not just for ourselves, but for each other.
That's the spirit we must summon as we make a new beginning for our nation. Times are tough. There are difficult months ahead. But we can renew our nation the same way that we have in the many years since Lincoln's first Thanksgiving: by coming together to overcome adversity; by reaching for -- and working for -- new horizons of opportunity for all Americans.
So this weekend -- with one heart, and one voice, the American people can give thanks that a new and brighter day is yet to come.
I have read several references to a 'tsunami,' with respect to describing the coming effects of this financial cataclysm. I sometimes wonder if those references, by mostly famous people, come from my earlier description, not that that matters. But all those references have gotten it wrong. The water is still going out! Waves are not coming in yet. Oh yes, we have banks and financial houses, even auto companies, on the brink and being 'bailed out.' I guess a good analogous description would put those efforts, the paying out of newly printed money to hold off disaster in those companies and industries, into best perspective in the following way. Our government is paying the wave to stay the hell out there. It can work for a little while. But its gotta come in eventually. That wave is a quadrillion dollar wave. Maybe a bit bigger. That's a thousand trillion dollars. We have assembled about six trillion and spent about four of that so far. We might put together another six trillion, which would make this bailout the largest expenditure of funding ever made by any government, for anything, on this planet. And still, it pales next to the quadrillion or more sitting out there.
Some people are talking about how we are going to be able to get through all this (without going through bankruptcy or cancelling our existing currency) by having a central worldwide bank and extending credit from that. A bigger version of the United States Bank, backed by our government alone, which I expounded on a few blogs back. Are we willing to sacrifice all of our sovereignty? Are we really ready for Friedman's flat earth? If we are, then being poor for a long long time will be where and how we live. Ninety percent of the world lives in some sort of poverty. Yes, that is a huge percentage. Only twenty-five percent of the planet has sufficient energy and food in order to have heating, air conditioning and eat a healthy diet. The media has shown us nothing else, really. We saw some of it marginally when Bono was on tour in Africa, but we kind of blew by it. We see just a few little swatches of the real world on newscasts about the Sahara, the Eastern Bloc and most of China, but we just let that stuff slip by. I liked to say, when I was traveling out there (which I don't do much of anymore) that the difference between a Republican and a Democrat back here was simply world travel. If you go out there, and get away from the airport and four star hotels, you see it. You begin to live it with those people. That expression applies: "If you stare into the abyss long enough, it begins to stare back at you."
In Mombasa, Kenya, the average yearly income for a family is less than a thousand dollars. I once supported a small village there, for many years, on a contribution of only two hundred and fifty a month. The world is a poor place indeed. And Kenya is not considered anywhere near the poorest! The questions posed by these facts are these: Do we live comfortably, thinking, creating and building technology to the point where all of us are lifted from poverty? Or, do we share absolutely everything we have and live in poverty with everyone else on the planet, and going nowhere? Maybe there ought to be two follow-on questions. Do we have enough generosity built into our culture to share the advances our status allows us to create and build, when we reach that point? And, do we have the kind of generosity it would take to simply distribute everything we now have to those who are not as well off as we are today, and then live with them in their circumstance?
And we ready for one central ruling body running the planet and the representatives of countries appointing those people who would make all the decisions from such an authority? Have we done that great a job with the United Nations? Have we done that great a job with our own country? If you answer no to those two questions then what idiocy would it take for us to just throw in with a financial entity that was created to make financial decisions for the world? Why trust them? Who do we trust now? Do we trust our banker? Our insurance companies? How can we? Did the people we trusted act honorably in taking this quadrillion I write about? Even if they changed and shaded the rules in order to make their thieving 'legal,' do we accept such behavior as being worthy of our trust again? If not, then why are these executives not being discharged across the land? Who's heads are rolling? None of them are losing their jobs. There is only talk of those people not being paid bonuses. Not getting the same amount of stock options. That sort of thing. But the, the wave is not really visible out there yet. But the water keeps on going out farther and farther.
It is Thanksgiving tomorrow. Whom do we thank? God? Well, thanks God. I don't understand You, but then everyone says that I am not supposed to or you would not be God. I would be. And we can't have that. So I thank God, for whatever. I have it okay. I have been given gifts. I prayed for strength so He gave me tremendous problems that I had to solve. After railing against Him about that, I finally figured out that He had also given me the gifts, if applied, to beat the problems. And I have never really figured out whether He gave me the problems, anyway. I just kind of had and have to believe. And He did not give me that gift.
So, I thank the people I am close to. I thank family and friends. I thank some of you out there who communicate with me regularly and positively, even though my rather strange life-style and opinions do not always merit such. I am sorry about the people I have hurt...and there is indeed a line of those back there, and I promise to continue to exert every effort in my being to try harder. To have a stronger sense of honor, integrity and compassion. The very things I write about in all my bodies of work. There is a happiness and bliss in my life and I wish it upon you, whoever you may be out there...on this night and on the morrow. Happy Thanksgiving.
Our super-charged holidays, Thanksgiving and Christmas, are upon us once again. More than at any other time of the year, we sense our souls awakening. Our hearts turn in equal part to dreams and memories; to miracles and despair.
In America, we have developed a habit of measuring our seasonal goodwill by the thickness of our wallets. This season will test equally our generosity, our spirit and our audacity.
Will we summon the wisdom to lift ourselves up and accept the challenges that push at every door? Will we choose to recognize ourselves in our neighbors? Will we take pride in our accomplishments and work harder to improve our short-comings? Will we acknowledge that sharing success is equally important to individual achievement?
It is no illusion that this holiday season will have gravely dark clouds hanging over it. But let all of us also see that a new dawn is just over the horizon. As our souls awaken now, let us reflect on the kind of America we seek and pledge to work to make it happen. May your blessings be large and may peace be with you.
Gratitude and Thanksgiving
Grace isn't a little prayer you chant before receiving a meal. It's a way to live. --Jackie Windspear
Who does not thank for little will not thank for much. --Estonian Proverb
God gave you a gift of 86,400 seconds today. Have you used one to say "thank you?" --William A. Ward
O Lord that lends me life, Lend me a heart replete with thankfulness! -- William Shakespeare
Gratitude consists of being more aware of what you have, than what you don’t. –Unknown
We often take for granted the very things that most deserve our gratitude. --Cynthia Ozick
To know the value of generosity, it is necessary to have suffered from the cold indifference of others. --Eugene Cloutier
How wonderful it would be if we could help our children and grandchildren to learn thanksgiving at an early age. Thanksgiving opens the doors. It changes a child's personality. A child is resentful, negative—or thankful. Thankful children want to give, they radiate happiness, they draw people. -- Sir John Templeton
Gratitude ... goes beyond the "mine" and "thine" and claims the truth that all of life is a pure gift. In the past I always thought of gratitude as a spontaneous response to the awareness of gifts received, but now I realize that gratitude can also be lived as a discipline. The discipline of gratitude is the explicit effort to acknowledge that all I am and have is given to me as a gift of love, a gift to be celebrated with joy. --Henri J. M. Nouwen
We can only be said to be alive in those moments when our hearts are conscious of our treasures. --Thornton Wilder
Feeling gratitude and not expressing it is like wrapping a present and not giving it --William Arthur Ward
Gratitude unlocks the fullness of life. It turns what we have into enough, and more. It turns denial into acceptance, chaos to order, confusion to clarity. It can turn a meal into a feast, a house into a home, a stranger into a friend. Gratitude makes sense of our past, brings peace for today, and creates a vision for tomorrow. --Melody Beattie
Gratitude is the sign of noble souls. -- Aesop Fables
The Pilgrims made seven times more graves than huts. No Americans have been more impoverished than these who, nevertheless, set aside a day of thanksgiving. --H.U. Westermayer
When our perils are past, shall our gratitude sleep? --George Canning
Some complain that roses have thorns—others rejoice that thorns have roses! --Unknown
Would you know who is the greatest saint in the world: It is not he who prays most or fasts most, it is not he who gives most alms or is most eminent for temperance, chastity or justice; but it is he who is always thankful to God, who wills everything that God wills, who receives everything as an instance of God’s goodness and has a heart always ready to praise God for it. --William Law
As we express our gratitude, we must never forget that the highest appreciation is not to utter words, but to live by them. --John Fitzgerald Kennedy
Not what we say about our blessings, but how we use them, is the true measure of our thanksgiving. --W.T. Purkiser
Gratitude is not only the greatest of virtues, but the parent of all the others. -- Cicero
If there is anyone out there who still doubts that America is a place where all things are possible; who still wonders if the dream of our founders is alive in our time; who still questions the power of our democracy, tonight is your answer. It's the answer told by lines that stretched around schools and churches in numbers this nation has never seen; by people who waited three hours and four hours, many for the very first time in their lives, because they believed that this time must be different; that their voice could be that difference.
--President-Elect Barack Obama
![[Mark Anthony Rolo, left, and his nephew Nick Rolo pick out a bagged turkey at Sentry Hilldale for their Thanksgiving family gathering. (Wisconsin State Journal)]](http://www.commondreams.org/files/article_images/rolothanksgiving1127.jpg "rolothanksgiving1127.jpg")
