Blessed Thanksgiving, dear digital neighbors! As Peter said to the Lord on Mount Tabor, “It is good that we are here.” While our online encounters are a far cry from Mount Tabor and the Transfiguration, they are often moments of grace and gratitude for me. I try to practice patience and acceptance toward attitudes, lifestyles, and people who march to a different drum than I do. I don’t like the word “tolerance,” because it suggests merely putting up with something or someone I don’t really care for. If you aren’t trying to impose your will on me, I’m content to let bygones be bygones—as long as we aren’t committing crimes (though that’s where some of our heated disagreements arise over what is or isn’t criminal). Either way, if you’re on a different path but still seeking goodwill toward all, I’m happy to wish you the very best and hope you find it along your way. I pray that you discover many reasons to be thankful today—an extra bonus day of gratitude for all of us in the States.

I fully subscribe to Dennis Prager’s sentiment that without gratitude as the foundation of your life, you will not be good or happy. When life is not received as a gift, it becomes a given; and once it is merely a given, it is all too easy to feel less than, cheated, or envious. The feelings may be real, but the perceptions they’re based on are not. There is no joy in envy—only resentment at other people’s happiness and apparent good fortune. Happiness and misery are both contagious, spread by the way we carry them in our hearts. I pray you carry happiness born of gratitude in your heart today. You will be a better person for it.

“I awoke this morning with devout thanksgiving for my friends, the old and the new.” — Will Carleton

“Our work-a-day lives are filled with opportunities to bless others. The power of a single glance or an encouraging smile must never be underestimated.” — G. Richard Rieger

“We can only be said to be alive in those moments when our hearts are conscious of our treasures.” — Thornton Wilder