Thanksgiving Day：感恩节 我们感谢生活

it's not the turkey alone we're grateful for. not the cranberry sauce or the stuffing or even the pumpkin pie. some of the people seated at the table are strangers - friends of friends, cousins of in-laws - and some are almost desperately familiar, faces we live and work with every day.
in any other week, today would merely be thursday and the gathering of all these people - the cooking and serving and cleaning - a chore. but today it doesn't feel that way. the host - perhaps it's you - stands up and asks that we give thanks, and we do, each in our own way. and what we're thankful for is simply this, the food, the shelter, the company and, above all, the sense of belonging.

as holidays go, thanksgiving is in some ways the most philosophical. today we try not to take for granted the things we almost always take for granted. we try, if only in that brief pause before the eating begins, to see through the well-worn patterns of our lives to what lies behind them. in other words, we try to understand how very rich we are, whether we feel very rich or not. today is one of the few times most americans consciously set desire aside, if only because desire is incompatible with the gratitude - not to mention the abundance - that thanksgiving summons.
it's tempting to think that one thanksgiving is pretty much like another, except for differences in the guest list and the recipes. but it isn't true. this is always a feast about where we are now. thanksgiving reflects the complexion of the year we're in. some years it feels buoyant, almost jubilant in nature. other years it seems marked by a conspicuous humility uncommon in the calendar of american emotions.

and this year? we will probably remember this thanksgiving as a banquet of mixed emotions. this is, after all, a profoundly american holiday. the undertow of business as usual seems especially strong this year. the shadow of a war and misgivings over the future loom in the minds of many of us. most years we enjoy the privacy of thanksgiving, but this year, somehow, the holiday feels like part of a public effort to remember and reclaim for ourselves what it means to be american.
that means giving thanks for some fundamental principles that should be honored every day of the year in the life of this nation - principles of generosity, tolerance and inclusion. this is a feast that no one should be turned away from. the abundance of the food piled on the table should signify that there is plenty for all, plenty to be shared. the welcome we feel makes sense only if we also extend it to others.
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我们所要感激的不只是火鸡、红莓沙司或者火鸡填料，也不单单是南瓜饼之类。坐在我们餐桌上的，也许还会有些陌生的面孔，他们是朋友的朋友，亲戚的亲戚；当然，还有熟的不能再熟的客人--和你每天生活、工作在一起的家人和同事们。
在其他时要求大家感谢曾帮助过自己的人、感动过自己的事，这是，大家也都会以各自候，对我们来说今天只不过是一个平常的星期四，大家俱在一起谈天说地而已，再加上还要准备晚宴、周到服务和结束后的清理，甚至可以说有点无聊。但今天不一样，主人--也许就是你自己--会站起来，的方式来表达对生活的感激。我们所感激的事情很简单：美味的食物、舒适的住所、真挚的友谊、无价的亲情......，最重要的，感谢生活赐予我们的归属感。

一年又一年，节日一个又一个，感恩节却让人永远过不烦，它总是能引起我们的思考。在这一天，我们向那些我们习以为常的小事致以深深的感激。我们尝试着去了解生活中看似秩序井然的表层下面更深层的意义，哪怕这个想法仅仅在饭前短暂的祈祷时一闪而过。可以说，我们尝试这去思考自己到底有多富有，我们又能否感觉到自己的富有或空虚。在这一天，大多数美国人会有意识地搁置自己的欲望，这种情况一年也不会发生多少次。而他们之所以这样做是因为欲望有悖于感恩节所倡导的感恩精神，也鞥背离了感恩节所号召的“精神上的富足”这一宗旨。
人们自然而然地会觉得除了客人名单和菜谱有些变化外，感恩节每年几乎都一个样。这是一个很错误的想法，感恩节的氛围永远与我们的现实处境息息相关。一个感恩节，反映了我们一年来经历的风风雨雨。有些年，这个节日是令人愉快的，几乎每时每刻都是喜气洋洋的；而另一些时候，它可能充满了美国人通常不会表现出来的谦虚。
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