Thanksgiving

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“…what is important is to be grateful today and to give thanks. I am more and more convinced that gratitude is one of the most sublime of human emotions. It is an emotion that reaches far beyond our own self to God, to all of creation, to the people who gave us life, love and care. It is an emotion in which we experience our dependence as a gift and realize that in the celebration of our dependencies we become more aware of who we truly are: a small but precious part of creation and above of the human family. On this day we can say: It is good “just” to be human and it is in our common humanity that we can recognize God’s love.”
-Henri Nouwen, Gracias: A Latin American Journal

Here, in no particular order, is a list of things I am thankful for this Thanksgiving:

-friends who get excited to celebrate Canadian thanksgiving and make pie and improvised turkey
-good coffee and conversations
-thunderstorms and mango trees
-being alive and learning to be present
-llamas
-friends and family who support, encourage and love me from far away and nearby
-Colombia and Canada
-kids who come to visit and then leave to go home
– an e-reader and access to great books, especially Can-lit. The only time I ever see the word Saskatchewan or chock-cherry is in my fictional life
-the opportunity to both live and work in Mampuján
-Cooking in Sincelejo
-that my neighbour put tile on my kitchen floor this weekend
-great work colleagues. Fuerte aplauso para Semilla!
-arroz con coco and fresh fruit
-justice
-being tia to Sarai and Elisabeth and neighbour to Juana and Alex
-only having to wear socks for 2 days in the last year
-discovering new things about myself
-the beach and the Old City of Cartagena
-thinking, and people to think with
-new cultures and community
-being stretched by things that are hard and things that are easy
-the ridiculousness of life, including the locura of what I do
-my shower and my mosquito net
-the complicated nature of life

I’m sure there is much more, but I will leave you with a snippet of a song written and sung by a lady in the Mampujan church, about being thankful. Usually, we are not at the beach, I am thankful that last week we all went on a field-trip to the playa. The instruments and the style of singing are, however, typical of a normal service.