Enlighten us.

Wednesday in Thanksgiving Week, school is out and people are traveling. Only getting online News, which seems more instant oriented, and practically never watching television, I'm seeing no statistics about jammed highways and crowded airports and panic about cancelled flights, even though maybe except for the covid years this has been a heaviest traveling Time of year. Covid may have made people wary of crowds or of trusting the airlines, but I doubt it.

In the News, another mass shooting, six dead, multiple injuries, people hospitalized, and the murderer dead at the WalMart in Chesapeake, Virginia. If the question is How much is enough? the answer is that we aren't interested in answers, because answers could interfere with our Rights and we're unwilling to go there regardless of the cost in innocent lives being deprived of their right to life. It again brings up the subject of Firearms. Speaking to the red cap crowd: the only way to Make America Great Again is to return to an imaginary Time when we cared as much about others as we care about ourselves, a Time when personal integrity was a highest value and those without personal integrity were shunned, a Time and place we have never been. As for MAGA, the word "Again" is delusional, believe me, I was there and you were not. America might be Great if our societal given was that With Rights Come Responsibilities. America is itself a Crime Scene: Do Not Cross

Tomorrow is Thanksgiving Day. It seems to have become a thing in some family gatherings to invite everyone to tell what they are thankful for. One person said, maybe more as a Reminder than anything, that they were thankful that Politics was a forbidden topic at the Thanksgiving table. Yea, amen. When I was in the Navy, a strict wardroom tradition was that sex, religion, and politics were forbidden topics.

Maybe forbid sports also, FIFA soccer, college football? Go Blue. Go Gators. USA USA USA. Have you ever been at a family dinner in Birmingham where everyone was kind, loving and thoughtful until someone asked whether Auburn could beat Alabama this year? Whew, I have! It spoiled my appetite and I didn't even give a rat's axe.

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From the BCP, here's a litany of thanksgiving for the Nation - -

Thanksgiving for National Life

Almighty God, giver of all good things:
We thank you for the natural majesty and beauty of this land. They restore us, though we often destroy them.
Heal us.

We thank you for the great resources of this nation. They make us rich, though we often exploit them.
Forgive us.

We thank you for the men and women who have made this country strong. They are models for us, though we often fall short of them.
Inspire us.

We thank you for the torch of liberty which has been lit inthis land. It has drawn people from every nation, though we have often hidden from its light.
Enlighten us.

We thank you for the faith we have inherited in all its rich variety. It sustains our life, though we have been faithless again and again.
Renew us.

Help us, O Lord, to finish the good work here begun.
Strengthen our efforts to blot out ignorance and prejudice, and to abolish poverty and crime. And hasten the day when all our people, with many voices in one united chorus, will glorify your holy Name. Amen.

And here's the prayerbook Collect for Thanksgiving Day:

Almighty and gracious Father, we give you thanks for the fruits of the earth in their season and for the labors of those who harvest them. Make us, we pray, faithful stewards of your great bounty, for the provision of our necessities and the relief of all who are in need, to the glory of your Name; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen

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Maybe that's as good a place as any to stop my ramble this morning.

RSF&PTL