Once again, we celebrate Thanksgiving. While we give thanks to a higher power for various blessings in our lives, we ought to remain aware of the poor and less fortunate who because of their unfortunate circumstances may not feel they are blessed.
The Thanksgiving holidays also kicks off the beginning of the “season.” This season has a variety of adjectives and interpretations. For some it’s the shopping season, for others, the Christmas season, the holiday season, and for most the ‘giving season’.
The giving season is easily recognized with a plethora of announcements from individuals, groups and community organizations hosting Thanksgiving dinners for the homeless and less fortunate or making donations of turkey and other food kind. The giving season will continue through to Christmas or year’s end with various organizations and most of the community adapting a spirit of kindness and community love not seen for most of the passing year.
During the giving season, people who normally paid scant attention to the plight of the poor take time to recognize those who have little or no clothing and food, are homeless or living in deplorable conditions, with children who have nothing to play with or nowhere to play. Then comes the New Year, and the giving season usually fades away like the old year.
It is gratifying that at least for four to five weeks at the end of each year there are people who exercise this giving spirit, but, unfortunately, the poor revert to poverty, the hungry to hunger, and the sufferers to suffering when the giving season ends.
Several community and other organizations should be commended for the planning they execute and implement in providing for needy individuals including children from Thanksgiving through to the end of the year. However, those who are concerned about fighting poverty year-round often question why the same diligent planning for fund raising, food collections, food banks, clothes and toy drives, home repair and general spirit of goodwill and generosity can’t extend throughout the year.
Others will argue that as much as they would like the spirit of giving and goodwill that characterizes the latter weeks of year to extend throughout the year, this giving spirit isn’t realistic to either precede this season or follow it. There is just not enough to give all year, they would claim.
This argument is fundamentally unacceptable. It is also unacceptable to just stand by and watch people in our communities revert to poverty and unbelievable struggles trying to make ends meet. It boggles the mind that the same people who display much generosity in organizing various Thanksgiving and Christmas events are not able to exercise similar commitment to develop long-term plans for countering and alleviating deep-rooted poverty.
On Thanksgiving Day, a few years ago, a local Catholic priest was asked to offer the blessing at a Thanksgiving dinner held for poor residents in Overtown, Miami-Dade. His prayer was brief and simple, “Lord, teach us to always give thanks and to love our neighbors as we love ourselves, not just for today, but always.”
Some who were present on hearing that prayer were touched not just by its simplicity, but the depth of the message. Asked why his blessing was so brief, the priest, said he didn’t need a long prayer to make people understand that love and charity toward each other – neighbors, co-workers, political rivals, between the 99 percent less well-off and the one percent extremely well-off, shouldn’t be just a highlight of the Thanksgiving and Christmas season. He said every year he was perplexed that people seem to be oblivious that the giving spirit they displayed during the holiday season was absent for the rest of the year.
This Thanksgiving, once more, several individuals in the community have organized treats for the poor. As this generosity extends during Christmas, the heart of the giving season, it would be a great change if these individuals, and organizations, including those in the Caribbean American community, seek means to realistically continue this generosity to their poorer neighbors. This generosity ought not be committed for “the season”, however it is interpreted, but be part of a longer-term commitment.
Something seems seriously awry for charity to be placed on hold for eleven months, then unwrapped and displayed with much self-profiling, and pomp, for just one month. As the community gives thanks on Thursday, and the more fortunate enjoy the holiday, they should be aware that the cruel pain of poverty takes no holiday. Give and be blessed.
HAPPY THAKSGIVING to all.
