A lesson of giving thanks from Mexico

It is a day of parades and football … a day of turkey and pumpkin pie … a day to greet friends and family and neighbors … and for some, a day to start Christmas shopping earlier than ever before.  But Thanksgiving, as the name implies, is a day to first and foremost give thanks for all we have to be grateful for.  

 Unfortunately, like so many other American holidays, the true meaning of Thanksgiving is often lost by the marketing and commercialization of things totally unrelated to the significance of the day.

It was with interest that a close Mexican friend of mine here in Puerto Vallarta, Pedro Barba, forwarded to me an article that resonated with him, and addressed the divergence that has occurred over the years, separating modern day reality from the traditional spirit of Thanksgiving.   Mexico does not celebrate Thanksgiving, but many Mexicans are acutely aware of the overindulgence Americans practice on so many levels during this so called day of giving thanks … the eating, the drinking, the shopping, the “official start of the holiday buying season.”   In fact, as more American companies (Wal-Mart, Best Buy, etc), open stores in Mexico, events such as Black Friday are beginning to creep into the local culture to the dismay of Mexican loyalists (larger cities such as Mexico City and Guadalajara had their first Black Friday sales earlier this month).

So it was with a bit of sadness, nostalgia, as well as hope that I read the article that Pedro had sent me, The Magic of Thanksgiving: A Harvest from the Seeds of Gratitude by Syma Kharal.   Ms. Kharal’s message is that gratitude holds the power to change our lives in magical and miraculous ways.

During a period of darkness and depression in her life, Ms. Kharal sought paths within herself to create peace and light within her soul.  What she discovered was that giving thanks, not just one day of the year but throughout our lives, created a positive aura that transforms one’s own well-being.  She found appreciation to be a powerful tool to lead to a happier and healthier existence.   Through her discovery, she developed a series of practices that brought her closer to achieving the peace, love, and compassion that had been missing in her life. 

So on this Thanksgiving, as we watch the games on TV, as we over eat, as we fret over what we need to buy people for another upcoming holiday that has been largely lost to commercialization, perhaps it would be beneficial for all of us to not only today give thanks for the wonderfulness of our lives, but develop a plan to continue giving thanks long after the leftovers are gone. 

Here are some practices Ms. Kharal recommends to get started to embrace the gifts of gratitude:

From Start to Finish:
Silently or aloud, let “thank you” be the first and last words you say every day. As this becomes a habit, you’ll enjoy deeper, sweeter sleep at night and dreamier days.

Write it Out:
Every time you notice something to give thanks for, jot it down in your phone or a pocket notebook. Whenever you feel low, browse through your entries to instantly uplift your spirit.

Say it Loud, Say it Clear:
Thank every person who does anything for you throughout the day. Sometimes we take people who contribute to our day-to-day needs for granted, so showing them sincere appreciation acknowledges their efforts and brings joy to both.

Reach Out:
Once a week, go beyond “Liking” the post of someone in your circle, and send them a personal message expressing something you appreciate about them.

Thank Now, Receive After:
When you are working on manifesting a desire, give thanks for its fruition as if it is already here. This demonstrates your absolute faith to the universe that your intention will manifest, and the universe will deliver.

Thank the Not-So-Good:
We do not naturally feel grateful for our challenges, but there are gifts within the most trying experiences. When we give thanks for the lesson in any situation, we free ourselves of that condition and open to blessings that are much easier and more fun to give thanks for.

As we practice gratitude on all these different levels, we attract even more to be thankful for.

So, whether or not you’re celebrating the Thanksgiving holiday, I hope you will give thanks each day, and as I learned to, welcome all the magic and miracles of living a grateful life.

 

"We interrupt this program..."

“The president has been shot.”   Nonchalantly, that was the comment from my friend Anthony Santos as we were hanging out on the sun-drenched playground during recess that Friday morning at Linda Vista Elementary School in San Jose.   Oblivious that the world around us was at that very moment changing forever, I jokingly said, “Yeah, he shot himself in the foot.”    That reaction from a naive ten year old was based on the fact that my Republican parents were no fans of Kennedy, and the few comments I heard about him at home were less than glowing.

“No, really,” Anthony replied at just about the same time the school bell rang cutting short our ten minute recess to the groans of kids who were just starting to release the energy that naturally builds as you sit in your fifth grade class for fifty minutes.  

“Return to your classrooms right now, everyone,” exclaimed my teacher Mrs. Naomi Churchwell, who was stuck with yard duty for that recess.  She rounded us up and lead us down the open air corridor to our room.  At the same time, other bewildered teachers, some with cigarettes still dangling from their lips, flowed from the teachers’ lounge, hurriedly heading back to their respective classrooms as unknowing grade schoolers lined up to be let back in for what would be a lesson most would never forget.

Once we were corralled inside, Mrs. Churchwell asked for complete silence. She mirrored what Anthony had already told me.  “There is some news that President Kennedy has been shot, but I don’t know much more.”  She said the principal of Linda Vista Elementary, Mr. Pierce, was going to try to get some news on the radio and then pipe it through the ancient speakers that were hung in each classroom … those being the same speakers that in the five years that I had been at Linda Vista never made a sound.   On November 22, 1963, while the world changed, the speakers didn't.  They still didn’t work.  We sat in silence, waiting.  Then, Mrs. Stebbins stolled into our classroom.  Mrs. Stebbins was the tall self-assured bleached blond sixth grade teacher from the room next door.  Her classroom had a television set.

As she brushed by my desk, still reeking of the lingering smoke from her abbreviated cigarette break, she told Mrs. Churchwell that her fifth graders could come next door to join Mrs. Stebbins' sixth grade classroom.  Since the worthless speaker system didn’t work, we could watch what was happening on TV.  So, we lined up and marched next door.  We huddled around the oval-shaped black and white TV along with Mrs. Stebbins' sixth graders who weren’t all that welcoming to a bunch of fifth graders invading their space.  The picture was very poor.  We were in San Jose and the only 4 TV stations we got were 50 miles away in San Francisco.  But through the blurry fading signal, the message came through.

I don’t remember the exact moment it was confirmed that the President had died, my memory on that part perhaps skewed from seeing the replays in more recent years of Walter Cronkite’s emotional announcement:  “From Dallas, Texas, the flash, apparently official, President Kennedy died at 1:00PM, Central Standard Time, 2:00 Eastern Standard Time, some 38 minutes ago.” 

I do remember girls in the classroom were crying, and I remember wondering that if the President was killed, did that mean that we would be taken over by Russia (I was never really good in civics lessons). 

Because those speakers in the classroom did not work, Mr. Pierce, the principal, had to make the rounds from classroom to classroom announcing that we were to go home.  They were trying to get buses in for the students who rode the bus.  The rest of us could walk home or come to the office to call our parents.  Life was much more simple then.

Since Linda Vista Elementary was only three blocks from my home, biking was my transportation.  I recall, as I made the turn from Gordon Avenue onto Valley View Avenue, seeing about a dozen cars parked in front of our house.  My mom, being a member of the San Jose Women’s Club, had planned a luncheon/bridge party for that Friday.  As I entered our home, there were the fashionably outfitted ladies, sitting around, eating and chatting.  When my mom asked why my brother and I were home from school so early, we told her the school had closed because the President had been assassinated.  She told us she had heard that and wasn’t sure if she should have continued with her luncheon plans, but when all the ladies started showing up, there wasn’t much she could do.  The party went on.

Retreating to my room, I turned on the radio and discovered that my favorite Top 40 station, KLIV, was playing funeral music.  It was the same with most other stations.  The rest carried news reports.  My brother had a TV in his room (and since we had an antenna on the roof, unlike Linda Vista, the stations came in perfectly, at least perfectly for 1963), we sat around and watched TV for a while, but soon grew bored of that.   All that was on was news.  So, we went outside to play.  Just a couple of kids, 10 and 9 years old, not so sure what was going on.

My dad got home early that day as well, just about the time the ladies were leaving.  He owned his own office machines business in downtown San Jose and let the employees go home after hearing what had happened.  It was what people did back then.  He came outside and played basketball with us.  That night he barbecued, like he normally did, as my brother and I sat in the living room and played board games.

The next day, a rainy Saturday, my dad took my brother and me to Santa Cruz for a delivery he had to make for work.  It was a gloomy day. 

The storm had passed by Sunday morning and my brother and I were just about to walk out the front door and head to Sunday school at the church a block away. That's when my dad said hold on for a minute.  On TV they were about to walk Kennedy’s suspected assassin out of the jailhouse in Dallas and he thought we should see him.  Being fans of shoot ‘em up Westerns on TV,  along with The Three Stooges and All Star Wrestling on Channel 2, it was at times difficult for a little kid to discern reality from fiction.   When Lee Harvey Oswald was shot dead right there on live TV, I thought, wow, how cool, they got him!   My dad ushered us out of the house and told us it was time to go to church.

My grandparents lived next door to us, so on Monday we went to their house to watch the funeral.  I was sad, but also after a while kind of bored.  I don’t remember seeing the famous photo of John John saluting the casket until years later.  On Tuesday, school reopened, businesses reopened, life went on.

There have been other historically defining moments that are etched into our memories.  They are now conversation starters. “Where were you when …” (fill in the blank) Robert Kennedy was killed, the Space Shuttle exploded, the San Francisco earthquake struck, 9/11 happened, and so on.   For generations to come, there will be those moments.  For our generation, the baby boomers, it was the event 50 years ago, November 22, 1963, that was the first memorable defining moment in a lifetime of world changing events.

Listen to your mother

My 89 year old mom fortunately is still as sharp as a tack.  She drives, she reads two newspapers every day, watches 90 minutes of news every night, and goes out to lunch and movies with her friends.   I still chat with her almost every evening about a variety of topics and issues.  She is also a life-long very conservative Republican, a big supporter of the party from Eisenhower through Nixon, Reagan, and onto the Bushes. 

She has seen a lot of history, and that’s why what is happening now in this country is so disturbing to her … on several different levels.  First of all, she

is angry that a manufactured crisis on Capitol Hill has left the nation in a shambles, hurting it domestically, internationally, economically, and spiritually.  She has seen her investments, the money she lives on now, placed in jeopardy, creating great anxiety.   But perhaps more significant and more upsetting to her is witnessing the demise of her beloved GOP. As she said to me last night, “It is over for the Republican Party.”    

Like many, she is puzzled as to how a small faction of one political party could orchestrate a hijacking, not just of their own party, but of the American government, not for the betterment of the country but solely to advance a misguided agenda.  She wonders how Canadian-born Sen. Ted Cruz (who holds a dual citizenship with the US) could almost single-handedly guide the United States to the brink of financial collapse then claim, in defeat, that he would do it again.  All the while, the Speaker of the House yields his power to a minority within his own party, ignoring the calls of others to allow them to vote (as you normally would do in a democracy). 

She wonders when it all started to go wrong … when these supposedly grown men and women that we send to Washington lost sight of their role in America. She recalls the past when this didn’t happen and government functioned regardless of who was in power.  As she said, "Maybe I didn’t vote for the Democrats who were elected President but once they were in office, I respected them and realized their views and positions represented those of the majority of Americans.  That doesn’t happen anymore."

In the past, those who didn’t respect the office of the Presidency were from countries at war with the US. Now it is many our own people.  And they are people who, like those who espouse anti-American sentiment in other parts of the world, are doing what they can to undermine the democratic process, largely for their own advancement and the advancement of their ideological dogma.   

When I was a reporter, every once in a while a viewer with a gripe about the newscast would call the station and complain.  The news director at the time thought that since one viewer called in, it must represent the majority of the rest of the viewers who were just too lazy to pick up the phone and call in with their similar complaint.  One time, someone called and said the news was too negative and reported on too many bad things.  The news director’s neighbor told him the same thing.  Based on that, management  decided we would change directions and become the "good news” station. The station did promos proclaiming that no longer were we the bad news station, only good news.  Us reporters cringed, but more viewers called in saying they loved it … what a great idea.   The management was euphoric that they had finally tapped into the mindset of viewers and their decision was bolstered by more and more comments and calls.  The problem was, good news does not make for a newscast.  And over two years the majority of viewers (remember, those who don’t pick up the phone and call) had expressed their thoughts in another way.  They switched stations.  The ratings plummeted (and I do mean plummeted).  The geniuses who came up with the “good news” format were fired, and to this day, the ratings have never fully recovered.  What had gone wrong?  The same thing that is going wrong in Washington now.  The leaders listen to the vocal minority, gave them power, then let them drive the country (or the TV station) into the toilet.   Eventually they discover that these complainers and malcontents DO NOT represent the masses, but it’s too late.  The damage has been done.

I remember when News10 switched to the “good news” format.  My mom told me then that she started watching Channel 3 sometimes because she wasn’t getting the “news” from my station anymore.  She was the silent majority.  I hope it’s not too late in Washington now, and assuming it isn’t, perhaps they should start listening to my mother.  Ten years from now, they will thank her for her insight and wisdom.  Otherwise, American voters, like TV viewers, will hopefully look elsewhere for leadership.