Today is Thanksgiving 2005 C.E. (A.D.)at 08:04 EST. Good morning to my
fellow Americans; good evening to our neighbours across the pond, not
excluding all our African and Asian immigrant sisters and brothers in
Europe. Halloa and peace to our African sisters and brothers! Many of
our Asian and some of our European and African fellow human beings are
still asleep or about to go to sleep. Good morning to our South and
Central American fellow humans! To all other hello and good morning too!
I’m sipping some cold coffee and cream; yeah well i COULD put it in the
microwave, but I don’t need to, it’s ok, and with the cream, this good
coffee tastes great! It’s not too cold now here; we live in coastal
Georgia, not too far north of the great Okefenokee and the other
Floridian and South Georgian swamps where the Creek and Seminole
alliance resisted the United States Army and Anglo-Georgian settlers
and militia for over three wars, in the most expensive war in American
history until this war on terrorism. I say this, rating the dollar
amount for what it could buy in those days, I forget what the
economists call it—real money cost—anyway this is a war that’s buried
deep in our national archives or long forgotten and faded from our
collective memory.
But I digress. Perhaps misanthropy will
become fashionable again, and all its little off-shoots: misogyny,
racism, nationalism, bigotry, and any other thinking and behaviour
which allows human beings to commit harm, and this includes ignoring
when others are in urgent need, to other human beings. After all, our
planet is getting more and more crowded, we are toxifying it, sending
it into imbalance… (I’m not entirely confident that the earth will
balance itself without wiping out most or at least a great part of the
human and animal populations, but for now I’m content to trust our
Creator, the Almighty Force of Life, God if you want to use that name).
Now, if you’ll pardon the change, I’d like to change the topic to
“Being Greatful for Family,” perhaps a topic which we take so much for
granted that we don’t even think to open up this topic, because why? it
sounds too folksy? not intellectual enough? or is it that the
philosophy bulletin boards draw the malcontents?
Anyhow, it’s
Thanksgiving, and I’m deeply greatful for our little nuclear family,
and grateful for my mother and father, who are still alive and
relatively well, thank God. I’m grateful for my brother and my sisters,
even my sister who is autistic and mentally so retarded that she cannot
speak any words. I am greatful for my uncles and aunts, my cousins and
their families. I rejoice that we have life and love and wealth and are
consious enough to share it with others.
My father is Irish; I
am Sean son of Pete son of Walter of Atlantic City. Where Walter came
from I don’t know. I sometimes think he came from the Ulster Scots
though these days Dad seems to be leaning to the more Southern Irish,
maybe Cork, but who cares? But that’s for another thread of essays.
My mother is the eldest daughter of a scion of Mexican Creole family, I
say Creole in the original sense, descended exclusively from peninsular
stock, our Castillian and Basque geneology does not claim any
indigenous Mexican, African, nor Jewish ancestors. We did this by
maintaining a rigid code of race consciousness—call it racism,
anti-semetism, even white supremacy if you will, but I had no hand in
this, or did I? I’ve married a Prussian, so I suppose I’ve continued
along in this tradition, though I don’t encourage anybody to exclude
someone just because their skin is dark or they are Semitic, African,
etc. However, I’m grateful in a sense, because I’m albe to approach
other white supremacists without them turning off their listening mind,
just because they might perceive me as a “mud-person.” So, am I a
“nigger lover?” “jew lover?” Yes, I am, because I love all that
reflects life, I love humanity, I even love animal and plant life.
You might think I’m off in la la land, saying this about loving all
people. However, allow me to support my expression of fondness for
people by saying that the good that the few does outshines the evil
that others do. I prefer to cherish the good, to encourage it by
praising, much as pa and ma would do as I grew from a wee bairn (babe)
through a lad (boy) into a man. Today we try to encourage our lad and
lassie to do well, rather than do badly, and to do good rather than
evil. Just so should our World Bank, our G-8, our alliances such as the
NATO, the U.N., the O.A.S., S.E.A.T.O. O.P.E.C. and Islamic networks,
encourage the doing of good, the healing rather than the tearing apart,
the violence, the annihilation of guerrilla, of terrorism, of war, of
serial killing…
As the old sagamore said, “I have spoken.”
Recent Comments