Most people in the US expect a blog post about the upcoming Thanksgiving holiday. This post isn’t about the Thanksgiving holiday, per se. It’s about something more substantial.
When one peels away all of the inaccurate history and racist representations of Native Americans during this holiday, one finds that Thanksgiving and the upcoming Yule season are really about relationships. Unfortunately, the report on the state of our relationships is not good.
At this time in history, our relationship with Mother Earth is broken. We fail to see the divinity beneath our feet and all around us. Our species poison the air and the water. Because of us, the Earth has a fever, and it’s getting hotter.
Our relationships with other species are equally bad. Every day, hundreds of others species go extinct because of us. Large-scale industrial farming traps animals in inhumane settings. Industrial livestock farming is a breeding ground for new viruses that can create new pathogens, allowing them to be passed from animals to humans.
Relations between humans are horrible. Violence is rampant. Humans prey on each other on the streets of large cities. Currently, Europe is experiencing the worse war since World War II as Russia’s imperialistic war on Ukraine grinds on without an end in sight. Starvation, food insecurity, and homelessness are global problems.
Even when we’re not killing each other, our relations with each other are poor. Personal relations are shallow at best and non-existent at worst.
Therefore, it’s not surprising that our relationships with ourselves are also bad. Healthy personal relationships are necessary for a healthy Self. This is because the Self is a product of the interaction between the individual and the world outside itself.
So, as you sit down for Thanksgiving dinner, whether a banquet with friends and relatives or a microwave dinner by yourself, think about your relationship with others, yourself, and our world. Then start doing something about it.
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