Greetings!
Thanksgiving week is usually when we hear a lot about how to avoid those uncomfortable political conversations with your Uncle Ralph over dinner. So it is an interesting year: On the one hand, the divisiveness is only worse in our country. On the other, most of us won’t be gathering with Uncle Ralph.
Either way, what is often missing in these conversations is how Thanksgiving can be a vehicle for unity as much as division. The common ground is often found in gratitude.
My across-the-street neighbor has different political views than me. This has been true for as long as we have lived here—over twenty years now. Every voting season our yard signs cancel each other out, as do our votes. We rarely talk.
If we did, here are a few gratitude questions I’d like to ask him: What do you love about our town? Since your wife passed away, what are you most grateful for about your many years together? What, or who, makes your life better these days? What is a challenging situation from your past that you are grateful for? What did you gain or learn from that experience?
As I said, we don’t talk much so I doubt I’ll ever get a chance to ask him these questions. But even wondering how he would answer helps me feel more connected to him. My hunch is that our shared gratitude would unify us in ways that our political yard signs do not.
With Gratitude,