I enjoyed both of these post-election expressions of gratitude, the first a cartoon from Mark Fiore, the second a column from Mark Morford, and wanted to share them.
Here's the part of Mark Morford's column that I found especially fitting:
This Thanksgiving, we have more to be genuinely grateful for than at any time in the past six years. A tentative return to "real" democracy. The desperate curse of corruption and misprision being lifted. Many of our nation's most sneering demons -- Pombo, Santorum, Hastert, Rumsfeld, the dogma of the Christian right -- all gone, all like so many slowly fading nightmares. A Democrat-run Congress that might actually serve a comparatively humanitarian, progressive agenda not based in war and scandal and a violent, judgmental God. Thank you, thank you, thank you.
But wait, is it cosmically just to parse and appraise gratitude this way? After all, the wise ones and the mystics tell us that thanks should have no such qualifications. We are to offer thanks for the hardship as well as the joy, the failure as well as the success, death as well as life, the Bush as well as the Clinton. It is all of a piece. Each is just another facet of the Great Teaching.
In other words, we are to offer, always and without reservation, thanks for this life, as it is now, in this moment, no matter how ugly and dejected it may feel, because it is precious and delicious and always full of simmering electric joy, if you just know where to look. It is, of course, a wonderful sentiment. It is karmically right and true.
Then again, these guys didn't endure "I'm the decider," "Is our children learning" or "Make the pie higher." It's enough to make even Buddha groan and cringe and say, Oh holy hell, that Dubya guy just ain't right in the head. I mean, come on.
No matter. Thanks is back. Thanks has returned to the tip of the tongue of a wary and war-torn nation. It is unpacking its bags, settling back in, buying some nice, at least moderately progressive furniture. And if we do this human evolution thing right, it might actually stay awhile.
And for that, we can all be grateful.
"I don't care much for gratitude of the noisy, boisterous kind. Why, when some men discharge an obligation, you can hear the report for miles around."
- Mark Twain
2 comments:
Groovy, actually, I've always thought being grateful for a crappy life was one of the things that traditionalists love to say but never really believe it themselves (life is a gift, even when you were burned over 99% of you body by your crack head mother's boyfriend for fun and now you live digit-less and people cringe at your appearance...).
If things suck I say don't stew, but get mad and do something about it, if you are in a position to. Imagine being thankful to be a Jew in Auschwitz. That's about the dumbest concept ever. -Sorry I'm venting.
Of course that's not really the meaning of the content. But that notion always gets me going. On the main gist of things...I can't be happier to see Bush on the ropes hoping not to get KO'd by the next scandal or setback in Iraq (not that I want to see setbacks in Iraq, I just like it when he gets the blame, as he should).
BTW I like the whole Mark Twain theme and the "post" theme. Nice writing. I read it so hastily the first go I missed it, despite being plain as day.
Thanks Jay for helping out here. You usually actually have more to say than me. So feel free to let it fly. I'll just be the guy with the clever name for the blog:)
Thanks for allowing me to post on your cleverly named blog. I am not an expert about karma, but in addition to gratitude, a very important part is the law of reaping what you sow. Not all that long ago I had this fear that Karl Rove had figured out a way for the Bush Administration to operate above that law as well. Thankfully no, and a bumper crop awaits Dubya and his pals.
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