A single day? Never!

We stop our daily grinds a bit to divert to family and lots of good food to commemorate the gathering of the Pilgrims as they partook of a meal after a devastating existence in a strange land.

Our daily problems pale in comparison to what the Pilgrims faced, yet we all sit down to a table laden with food and peppered with friendship and love to take a moment to give thanks.

There are too many things for which we are truly thankful, but we take most of them for granted. We live freedom, yet we don’t cherish it as we would have had we lived under a political system that deprived people of freedom.

We enjoy so many things in the course of a day that it is embarrassing to think that we would not take a moment — now and then — to remember that we are a unique people with varied backgrounds, talents, and motivations. Nonetheless, we operate as a well-oiled machine, depending on the equanimity of our basic freedoms and relying on the expertise of our fellows when we are ill or in danger.

Those who work on Thanksgiving Day labor in many areas. Hospitals still hum along on the holiday. Firehouses and police stations echo with laughter and camaraderie of uniformed “brothers” who willingly take their time to protect us all. Squad cars patrol our cities and state policemen take to the roads in anticipation of increased traffic — and they take it in stride.

Today, as you sit down with family or friends to enjoy the bounty of harvest and celebrate the Pilgrims conquest of a new land, vow to take your freedom less for granted. Don’t assume that freedom will always abound. It is fragile and easily dislodged when leaders seek power for power’s sake and forget that they, too, are servants of the people. Don’t allow Thanksgiving to be relegated to a single day.

Thank God for the United States of America. God bless us all.

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