Thanksgiving is a day for us to be grateful. As such, it is a wonderful holiday and I wish you a happy one.
At the same time, we all know that our joyful story of Thanksgiving is haunted by the shadow of what really happened. While we celebrate the story of brave pilgrims and friendly natives, at some level we all know that what we call American history is a mask covering a terrifying face we do not want to see.
It is important to pause and be grateful. I would not want to dim this day of joy, but I also know that joy based on falsehood soon becomes sorrow. If we are not very careful today, we will count as blessings those things that were stolen by our ancestors. If we are not careful we will celebrate a level of consumption that displaces much of the world and imperils our own survival as well.
So I propose that we enjoy this day fully. I also propose that we take any images of pilgrims or natives off our table so we do not repeat the false history of Thanksgiving. I propose that we enjoy this day with friends and family, but also that we light a candle for the displaced people of our past and present, and that we pledge ourselves to work the rest of the year for the kind of blessings that can be shared with all the people of the world.