Thanksgiving

This morning, a glorious, vibrant sunny morning in Santa Barbara, I was reflecting on giving thanks. It crossed my mind that our nation was in dire straits due to the recent election of Bush/Cheney, and that most, if not all of the complaints I'd blogged about over the last months were unattended and likely to be exacerbated during Bush's next term. What, I wondered, was there to give thanks about given that condition of the nation?

And then, as I was getting ready for a bike ride, a neighbor happened by. He was wearing a black T-shirt with a logo on the back. "Danger--Land Mines!" it said, beneath the image of a skull. I asked him about the shirt and he told me he'd bought it in Cambodia, where that sign was posted on every pathway through the jungle and where every third child he'd seen in the month that he visited Cambodia was missing a limb, usually a leg.

And so I give thanks. Compared to Cambodia, the United States, even with Bush in office, isn't so bad.

But it's close.