CHILD WATCHÔ COLUMN

A LITANY OF THANKSGIVING

By Marian Wright Edelman

            Most Americans have just finished celebrating another Thanksgiving Day.  Every year, news reporters stand in the middle of the crowds at airports and train stations around the country to remind us that Thanksgiving is the busiest travel period of the year.  And of course there is a reason for all this coming and going:  Thanksgiving is a day when many Americans want to gather together with family and other loved ones as we all stop to count our blessings.  During the rest of the year, too many of us spend much of our time preoccupied with needs and wants:  fancier clothes, a new car, a better job, a bigger house.  Often we wait until the holiday season rolls back around to really spend time thinking about the haves- and have-nots in our country.  Once we do, those of us who “have”—even if what we have isn’t all that much—are often humbled again by just how wealthy we really are.  When we begin thinking about how much we have to be thankful for, if we start with the small and simple things, most of us quickly find we have far too many blessings to count. 

The brilliant Black theologian Howard Thurman is one of my favorite authors.  At this time of year, I always like to reflect on his beautiful prayer A Litany of Thanksgiving:

In Your presence, O God, we make our Sacrament of Thanksgiving.
      We begin with the simple things of our days:
      Fresh air to breathe,
      Cool water to drink,
      The taste of food,
      The protection of houses and clothes,
      The comforts of home.
For all these we make an act of Thanksgiving this day!

We bring to mind all the warmth of humankind that we have known:
      Our mothers’ arms,
      The strength of our fathers,
      The playmates of our childhood,
      The wonderful stories brought to us from the lives of many who
      talked of days gone by when fairies and giants and diverse kinds
      of magic held sway;
      The tears we have shed, the tears we have seen;
      The excitement of laughter and the twinkle in the eye with
      its reminder that life is good.
For all these we make an act of Thanksgiving this day.

            There is very little in this litany that costs money—but those of us privileged enough to have received these blessings know they are all priceless.

What do you have to be thankful for?

Marian Wright Edelman is President and Founder of the Children's Defense Fund and its Action Council whose Leave No Child Behind^® mission is to ensure every child a Healthy Start, a Head Start, a Fair Start, a Safe Start, and a Moral Start in life and successful passage to adulthood with the help of caring families and communities.