Happy Thanksgiving!

I say that now because chances are we’ll not speak again until after the turkey is naught but a barren carcass and the pie an empty tin. I trust that by now you’ve read all of my sage Thanksgiving advice, planned your service project, convinced Uncle Spud to pull out his polka for the talent show, and are ready to give thanks like it’s 2009!

Lest you have missed the articles concerning creating a meaningful Thanksgiving, they are featured here: http://ldsfamilies.bellaonline.com/Site.asp

This week being light (in terms of work, not eating!) its articles are a book review and a leftover recipe (a’la “Post Easter Soup”)

a review of the truly excellent “The Thanksgiving Ceremony” by Edward Bleier may be found here: http://www.bellaonline.com/articles/art16909.asp

And “Post Thanksgiving Soup – Turkey Chili” is here: http://www.bellaonline.com/articles/art17567.asp

I have to say, I came up with this recipe a couple of weeks ago so I could offer it the week of “T-Day.” I froze most of it and have been delighting in Post Thanksgiving Soup in the days leading up to Thanksgiving. Either the time-space continuum ceases to apply in my home, or my kids are going through a chili revolt. This is one of those recipes that just tickles me, though, so I’m fiiiine!

I do hope you all have a safe and wonderful holiday week. Please remember to start your road trips out with prayer and ample sleep. If the stuffing burns and no one likes your pie, just take a lot of pictures and give a lot of hugs, and, of course, count your many blessings!

In lieu of my usual "Tip of the Week" and "Quote of the Week," Here is my poetic reckoning of this year:




I am Thankful for each breath that pushes me forward in this life…

For every shrug of my children’s shoulders, clap of their hands, quiver in their voices.

I am Thankful to have lived enough to boast a gray hair, and know my husband this well, like him so, feel him deeply--so deeply, that I no longer roll my eyes when he repeats his stories I’ve heard a hundred times, but join in the retelling, as if I was there and it was the most passionate moment of my life...

I am Thankful I can cry--scream, even--and watch my hands and feet continue to work through the gale, living still, and living truly beneath it all.

I am Thankful that as dark as it is sometimes, as far as I have felt and fallen, I have never wised up enough to lose hope. I am Thankful faith is in me, even weakly here and there, roaring again after a rest.

I am Thankful for a mind that can think--for reason--even when absurdity swallows it whole, and the lack of it in the corners almost makes me, to quote my three-year-old, “nutso”

And for the sensibility that feels, perceiving loss as much as life, allowing grace to enter, settling over and through, soft yellow coaxing gray from devastation to...what comes next.

I am Thankful for my Father in Heaven.

His Son, His prophets, His gospel, His plan, His light.

Yes, dear God above, I AM Thankful for this existence. YES and YES would I do it all again, and a hundred times more to have this life, to claim it as I choose.

The fire I would crawl through, burning down and rising up, to have the care and tending of the six souls I hold—endowments precious, bequeathed, bestowed—in my hands, echoing His holding me.

I breathe in smoke sometimes, but I breathe. The pushing forward is at His pleasure, in His wisdom.

And the man and the children and the mind and the crying and the grace--all gifts-- ALL grace.

If it is a sigh, so it is; and I am still and ever…

I am Thankful.



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