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Thanksgiving and Pilgrims.
Pilgrim – a person who travels to a sacred place for religious reasons or great moral significance. People who traveled by boat from England and created the first permanent settlement in New England … As a verb, “wander like a pilgrim.”
Thanksgiving – the fourth Thursday in November in the U.S. or the second Monday in October in Canada celebrated as a legal holiday for people to be thankful for what they have. People traditionally eat a large meal with family or friends on Thanksgiving. In America a day of remembrance for the Pilgrims who preceded us.
I live in San Diego. Now fourth instead of 12th in the number of homeless almost nine thousand weak. A good city, like many others, where organizations are overwhelmed with volunteers to help feed the needy as another way of giving thanks. It’s cold at night now. I walk past them asleep on frigid concrete sidewalks, covered in cardboard, dirty frayed blankets, and plastic tarps in a futile effort to keep the weather out and warmth in. Sometimes I see a filthy foot protruding from under a blanket in desperate need of a sock. Schizophrenics are all too common, screaming at demons invisible to others. A few days ago I reached out to a man sitting down on the concrete with one leg under his ass and the other pointing north with his head down on his chest. He looked dead waiting to fall over, a junkie happy in another world where all good things happen.
I wonder how many of the homeless, mentally ill, and druggies are the way they are because of a marriages gone bad, losing their children, or having a court strip them of everything they own for whatever reasons. I wonder why we allow homelessness, especially for our Veterans who offered up themselves for the rest of us. I have been there, homeless. Not ass down on cold concrete with filthy sockless feet, but homeless nonetheless with no altered state happy never-never land safe harbor to anchor and ride it out. Holidays are not all fun and cheer for many of us, not even if the roof over our heads is better than cardboard, a blanket or a plastic tarp.
Peace Pilgrim – 1908 – 1981 a silver-haired woman calling herself only “Peace Pilgrim” walked and wandered more than 25,000 miles on a personal pilgrimage for peace. She vowed to “remain a wanderer until mankind has learned the way of peace, walking until given shelter and fasting until given food.
There’s much to be thankful, including what goodness lives in most of us.
I am now one of the lucky ones. I hope you are too. I’m slow-cooking a five-pound chuck roast, my contribution along with a wish that all of us keep the weather out and warmth in, with friends and family, surrounded by goodwill, good food and concern for others.
Peace, Pilgrim.
Happy Thanksgiving…
