Tag: Thanksgiving

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Thanksgiving praise

Thanksgiving is one of the times during the year that I’m drawn to revisit hymns from when I was a child growing up in the Methodist church.

This has always been one of my favorites, but I have a much deeper appreciation of the words’ meaning after my years on the spiritual path.

I hope you enjoy the hymn and that you had a blessed and joyful Thanksgiving.

LYRICS
Praise to the Lord, the Almighty,
  the King of creation!
O my soul, praise Him, for He is thy
  health and salvation!
    All ye who hear,
Now to His temple draw near;
Sing now in glad adoration!

Praise to the Lord, who o’er all
  things so wondrously reigneth,
Who, as on wings of an eagle,
  uplifteth, sustaineth.
    Hast thou not seen
How thy desires all have been
Granted in what He ordaineth?

Praise to the Lord, who doth prosper
  thy work and defend thee,
Who from the heavens the streams of
  His mercy doth send thee.
    Ponder anew
What the Almighty can do,
Who with His love doth befriend thee.

Praise to the Lord! Oh, let all that
  is in me adore Him!
All that hath life and breath, come
  now with praises before Him!
    Let the Amen
Sound from His people again;
Gladly for aye we adore Him.

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A transitional kind of day

The transition from Thanksgiving to Christmas has begun; eating leftover nutloaf while decorating the tree.

Tomorrow afternoon is the setting up of the creche.

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November 26 health addendum

I’m sure it won’t come as a surprise to learn that I’m particularly grateful for some very specific things this Thanksgiving season.

  1. I’m grateful for my primary care physician — Amy Nielsen at Sierra Family Medical Center — for connecting the dots that led to my cancer diagnosis a little less than a year ago.
  2. I’m grateful for the excellent care I received at Sierra Nevada Memorial Hospital, in the oncology, radiation, and infusion departments.
  3. I’m grateful for every person on the apheresis and bone marrow transplant teams at UC Davis Medical Center.
  4. I’m grateful for Dr. Lena Suhaila, my naturopathic integrative oncologist, and for her guidance in addressing the more subtle and holistic aspects of healing. 
  5. I’m grateful for every single doctor, specialist, nurse, lab technician, pharmacist, or other medical professional I encountered throughout my journey.
  6. I’m grateful for the hundreds of people from around the world, and from every area (and era) of my life, who prayed, sent encouraging letters and emails, or otherwise supported my process.
  7. I’m grateful for the teachings and practices of my spiritual path that provided the tools I needed to maintain a positive and optimistic attitude.
  8. I’m grateful for the music of Ananda which has been an important part of my healing process.
  9. I’m grateful for the financial assistance from many organizations and individuals that allowed me to focus on healing without stressing about the expense.
  10. Last but not least, I’m grateful for Ramesha, for my Dad, and for my friend, Suzanne. They’ve been my rocks throughout this experience and, in my Dad’s case, throughout my life. 

I also want to take this opportunity to let everyone know that I’m doing extremely well physically. It’s true that I still have to be careful to avoid viral infections (as my immune system comes fully back online), but my energy is so good that the only other “danger” I have to guard against is slipping back into “normal” mode too quickly. 

Why? Because my usual tendency has always been to neglect the subtle and holistic self-care elements that can lead to deeper levels of healing. And I feel one of the major lessons of this whole experience has been to wake me up to the absolute importance of true self-care. So, I’m working on it!

I love and appreciate each and every one of you, and hope you’ve enjoyed a blessed Thanksgiving, filled with an abundance of love and joy.

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Hope you had a blessed Thanksgiving!

I’ve been on a roll with rearranging things in our apartment, which means going through boxes and papers and discarding a lot of unnecessary clutter.

I did finish in time to attend our first real Thanksgiving dinner since 2019(!), but I’m going to have to do post-Thanksgiving calls and cards.

However, while working, I was reflecting on all that I have to be grateful for…and it’s an extremely long list.

I give thanks to the Giver behind each gift, and to the one Giver behind all that I receive. My gratitude rises with devotion’s incense to the throne of Omnipresence.
— Swami Kriyananda

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Counting my blessings

I truly am grateful, thankful, and blessed!

Here’s something that Swamiji said in 2012:

“Happy Thanksgiving Day. Today is a big day in America, but what it stands for would be good for everyone on earth to celebrate: a day of thanks to God for His many gifts.”

How wonderful it would be to focus on giving thanks for God’s gifts every day of the year, and to go to sleep each night…counting my blessings!

LYRICS
When I’m worried and I can’t sleep
I count my blessings instead of sheep
And I fall asleep counting my blessings

When my bankroll is getting small
I think of when I had none at all
And I fall asleep counting my blessings

I think about a nursery and I picture curly heads
And one by one I count them as they slumber in their beds

If you’re worried and you can’t sleep
Just count your blessings instead of sheep
And you’ll fall asleep counting your blessings

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Thanksgiving before Christmas

Back in October — irritated by my first sighting of Christmas merchandise, weeks before Halloween even(!) — I was reminded of a Sunday talk I heard at my Unity church in San Francisco, way back in the early 1990’s.

The minister talked about how much she appreciated the fact that Nordstrom made a point of waiting until after Thanksgiving to put up their store Christmas tree and other decorations. As she pointed out, Thanksgiving (gratitude) comes before Christmas (receiving).

The importance of her insight has stayed with me over the decades: forgetting or belittling the gratitude part and becoming overly focused on the receiving (or getting) part is a recipe for disaster — for us as individuals and also as a society.

We see it happening a little bit more every year, as the Christmas decorations go up earlier and earlier in order to encourage people to buy more, buy sooner, buy faster! Get, get, get! But what about first slowing down and remembering to give thanks for what you’ve already got?

I’m not big on shopping; in fact, I’m pretty sure the last time I was in a Nordstrom was to play a gig back in my days as a freelance flutist. But if I were to need to shop in a department store, I would want to give Nordstrom my business, because I so very much appreciate that they’re still sticking to their guns all these years later!

I googled it because I was curious and discovered that in its more than 100-year history, Nordstrom has never decorated before Thanksgiving. And the store has received widespread support on social media about this, with consumers praising Nordstrom for fighting the “Christmas creep.”

Now that’s something I can heartily endorse!