It's not the turkey alone we're grateful for. Not the cranberry sauce or the stuffing or even the pumpkin pie. Some of the people seated at the table are strangers - friends of friends, cousins of in-laws - and some are almost desperately familiar, faces we live and work with every day.
In any other week, today would merely be Thursday and the gathering of all these people - the cooking and serving and cleaning - a chore. But today it doesn't feel that way. The host - perhaps it's you - stands up and asks that we give thanks, and we do, each in our own way. And what we're thankful for is simply this, the food, the shelter, the company and, above all, the sense of belonging.
As holidays go, Thanksgiving is in some ways the most philosophical. Today we try not to take for granted the things we almost always take for granted. We try, if only in that brief pause before the eating begins, to see through the well-worn patterns of our lives to what lies behind them. In other words, we try to understand how very rich we are, whether we feel very rich or not. Today is one of the few times most Americans consciously set desire aside, if only because desire is incompatible with the gratitude - not to mention the abundance - that Thanksgiving summons.
It's tempting to think that one Thanksgiving is pretty much like another, except for differences in the guest list and the recipes. But it isn't true. This is always a feast about where we are now. Thanksgiving reflects the complexion of the year we're in. Some years it feels buoyant, almost jubilant in nature. Other years it seems marked by a conspicuous humility uncommon in the calendar of American emotions.
And this year? We will probably remember this Thanksgiving as a banquet of mixed emotions. This is, after all, a profoundly American holiday. The undertow of business as usual seems especially strong this year. The shadow of a war and misgivings over the future loom in the minds of many of us. Most years we enjoy the privacy of Thanksgiving, but this year, somehow, the holiday feels like part of a public effort to remember and reclaim for ourselves what it means to be American.
That means giving thanks for some fundamental principles that should be honored every day of the year in the life of this nation - principles of generosity, tolerance and inclusion. This is a feast that no one should be turned away from. The abundance of the food piled on the table should signify that there is plenty for all, plenty to be shared. The welcome we feel makes sense only if we also extend it to others.
我們所要感激的不只是火雞、紅莓沙司或者火雞填料，也不單單是南瓜餅之類。坐在我們餐桌上的，也許還會有些陌生的面孔，他們是朋友的朋友，親戚的親戚；當然，還有熟的不能再熟的客人--和你每天生活、工作在一起的家人和同事們。
在其他時要求大家感謝曾幫助過自己的人、感動過自己的事，這是，大家也都會以各自候，對我們來說今天只不過是一個平常的星期四，大家俱在一起談天說地而已，再加上還要準備晚宴、周到服務和結束后的清理，甚至可以說有點無聊。但今天不一樣，主人--也許就是你自己--會站起來，的方式來表達對生活的感激。我們所感激的事情很簡單：美味的食物、舒適的住所、真摯的友誼、無價的親情......，最重要的，感謝生活賜予我們的歸屬感。
一年又一年，節日一個又一個，感恩節卻讓人永遠過不煩，它總是能引起我們的思考。在這一天，我們向那些我們習以為常的小事致以深深的感激。我們嘗試著去了解生活中看似秩序井然的表層下面更深層的意義，哪怕這個想法僅僅在飯前短暫的祈禱時一閃而過。可以說，我們嘗試這去思考自己到底有多富有，我們又能否感覺到自己的富有或空虛。在這一天，大多數美國人會有意識地擱置自己的欲望，這種情況一年也不會發生多少次。而他們之所以這樣做是因為欲望有悖于感恩節所倡導的感恩精神，也鞥背離了感恩節所號召的“精神上的富足”這一宗旨。
人們自然而然地會覺得除了客人名單和菜譜有些變化外，感恩節每年幾乎都一個樣。這是一個很錯誤的想法，感恩節的氛圍永遠與我們的現實處境息息相關。一個感恩節，反映了我們一年來經歷的風風雨雨。有些年，這個節日是令人愉快的，幾乎每時每刻都是喜氣洋洋的；而另一些時候，它可能充滿了美國人通常不會表現出來的謙虛。
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