Gratitude

"Praying Hands" by Albrecht Durer

Over the past 35 years, Thanksgiving had become my favorite holiday, which I considered it a holy day too. Since we do not celebrate it in Malta, or anywhere in Europe, it became more meaningful for me as the years went by to give tribute to God for all the blessings that I have received from family, friends, former parishioners and Americans in general. Thanksgiving is considered to be an art, the art of living thankfully and showing gratitude to God. So walk with me today through this list of things we so often take for granted:

- for Malta and the USA, the first one of the smallest picturesque  island-countries, and the second a big nation with many challenges, but plenty of opportunities.

- Bill Gates and Steve Jobs, who gave us Microsoft and Apple respectively, as well as Windows, Ipods, Ipads, the copy and paste buttons, half a million apps and free e-mail, with no paper, no envelopes, no postage.

- digital cameras, and the possibility to take hundreds of photos without having to print any of them, but save the good ones and discard the blurry ones, then send them to friends within a few seconds.

- Freezers, so that you can freeze your favorite soup or meal, and enjoy it 3 months later.

- Do Re MI Fa So La Si - the 7 notes that can still give us millions of songs and pieces of music.

- For Automatic cars, so that you can drive without having to shift gears every 3 seconds, as we have to do in Malta.

- for movies on DVDs, for entire symphonies on CDs, and also for the nostalgia of vinyl records, cassettes, floppy discs and even beta tapes, which are now all Museum items.

- for flying across the Atlantic in 7 hours, instead of sailing the same distance in 27 days.

- for Webcams, that allow you to see what’s going on around the world.

- for microwave ovens, for dish-washers, washing-machines and dryers, and also for, remember them? - typewriters!

- for the blessing of water and rain, without which, nothing will survive, especially in dry countries.

- for the opportunity to share a blog around the world, and stay in touch with friends, as they get an inspirational thought each day.

- for courteous neighbors, for blood donors and organ donors, for patient check-out salesgirls, for concerned landlords and for priests and deacons who preach less than 10 minutes on Sundays.  There is so much more to be grateful for.

- And last but not least, for our parents who created us out of love, and for our children who look up to us, hopefully to receive always a good example.