Give thanks, not grief
On funerals, Calvin Coolidge, and how to make Thanksgiving reach more
For the last several years, it has been fashionable for news outlets to publish articles about avoiding politics over Thanksgiving dinner. The advice is generally unoriginal and often downright risible.
■ The problem, though, is that boundaries about what not to discuss don't really leave us with much upon which to build. In the words of Calvin Coolidge, "The only way I know to drive out evil from the country is by the constructive method of filling it with good. The country is better off tranquilly considering its blessings and merits, and earnestly striving to secure more of them, than it would be in nursing hostile bitterness about its deficiencies and faults."
■ It can be hard to show gratitude -- even to an abstraction, like the meaning of a country. It can be even harder to show thanks to another individual, especially without it sounding forced or contrived. But we ought to try, and Thanksgiving is the most logical time to start.
■ The rabbi and philosopher Jonathan Sacks once noted, "How tragic it is that we so often keep our gratitude to ourselves, speaking it aloud only when the person to whom we feel indebted is no longer here, and we are comforting his or her mourners." And maybe that is the article journalists should be writing instead of "How to avoid politics over turkey": How to thank others constructively.
