In Gratitude

Over the years, Thanksgiving had become my favorite holiday. 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 Maltese and Americans in general. Thanksgiving is considered to be an art, the art of living thankfully and showing gratitude to God for all He gave us over the years. So as we pause to give gratitude to God today, walk with me through this list of things we so often take for granted:

- for our health, which is at the moment is appreciated more than ever before, and for the thousands of doctors, scientists, nurses and carers who are doing their best to bring this pandemic under control, and hopefully eliminated forever.

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

- for Webcams, that allow you to see what’s going on around the world, especially if you’re driving through bad weather, both snow in the USA and rain in Malta.

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

- for the opportunity to share this blog around the world, all for free, and having hundreds of visitors checking it daily, with a new entry every single day.

- for 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.

- for 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.

- for freezers, so that you can freeze your favorite soup or meal, and enjoy it 6 months later.

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

- 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 the joy of children, the wisdom of our senior citizens, for the enthusiasm of our youth and for the chaste genuine love expressed by husbands and wives.

- for courteous neighbors, for blood donors and organ donors, for generous donors who help those less fortunate, for priests who preach less than 10 minutes on Sundays.

- for our churches, where we can gather as a community to worship and find hope, faith and peace. 

- 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.