For each new morning with its light,
For rest and shelter of the night,
For health and food,
For love and friends,
For everything Thy goodness sends.

–Ralph Waldo Emerson

My parents brought me up Roman Catholic, I was baptized and given first communion in that church. The churches I attended as a child at some point had folk singers with guitars, but overall the music wasn’t very good.

My formative years were spend at a Quaker school. Quakers aren’t big on consumerism, or extraneous showy thanks one or two days a year, and they aren’t really hymn singers.

When I was 9 or so, while over here visiting relatives in New England for the holiday, I attended a Congregational Church. The music was better than at any church I had attended to that point in time — lots of Mozart, Handel, the choir spectacular. I vowed to become a Congregationalist when I grew up. I’m thankful for the music.

As it happens I was never confirmed in any church as shortly after returning to the United States for good I lost my religion. Hedging my bets I currently call myself agnostic.

While I appreciate all redefinitions of the Trinity, I understand better the description of atheists at the inevitable holiday mealtime thanks to God. As I read of the typical agnostic’s half head bow I shiver proudly realizing I am an advanced agnostic. I bow my head not at all, I simply lower my eyelids halfway, putting me only a fraction away from the atheists who stare straight at the wall in front of them.

The eye lowering serves me well as we move easily on to the food and drink, toasting diversity and disagreement. I’m thankful for my friends and family.

Be generous, and accept generosity.

Happy Thanksgiving.

A 34-year-old man died when they were trampled in a rush of Black Friday shoppers at a Long Island mall today, police said.

What a shame.

At least the running of the bulls is steeped in the tradition of practicality when, in 1591 residents merely had to herd the bulls to the bull-fighting arena where they would be killed in the evening.At first only the drovers were used to lead the bulls. The event eventually became more popularized.

What’s our excuse tradition?

In the id 1960′s someone in Philly called it Black Friday to denote the heavy traffic at shopping areas the day after Thanksgiving, but in the eighties realizing this day was the day many retailers went from “in the red” to “in the black” it started to be used as a marketing tool. We bought it, hook, line and sinker.

It’s all about the money, like it was when someone decided they could make more money by giving credit to people who were less likely to be able to pay their bills on time and ditched the age old policy where they required people to have established themselves as responsible by working a couple years and saving a little money.

Who is to blame, those who give the credit to those who can’t afford to pay their bills because that is the easiest way to make billions of dollars, or those who accept the credit?

Who is to blame for the death of a stock clerk, Walmart for allowing the stampede, those who stampeded, or the stock clerk for taking a risk and working on Black Friday?

What have we become when are acceptable losses are human, and based on greed?

Peace