It’s nice that gratitude has become such a common meditation. It’s such an effective cognitive technique for shifting one perspective and finding a place of grace. As bad as things have seemed, there really is quite a lot to be grateful for this 2020.
I got a negative covid test on xmas eve following a week of feeling sick. I am so grateful that we didn’t have to cancel all our family celebrations. Of course that no one close to me has yet to succumb to the Trump virus is also something to be grateful for, as is just being alive at 71 for a fat, clumsy, safety-third old fart. It is not lost on me that the same cannot be said for many thousands of others, increasing daily, who are gripped with tragic and ongoing loss and grief.
This loss is of course the worst, most callous, and inexcusable crime of the current administration and whether some of us realize it or not, I think we should all be grateful for the coming end to the reign of the Troll King. Despite his incitement, enough of the Republican bureaucrats and enough of the judges he has appointed defected from the cause and did the right thing. I’m grateful too that few enough of the minions brainwashed by the cynical and anti-democratic agitprop of the Republican party, have yet to follow through on their threats to use any means necessary to support the regime.
Then there is the miracle of gene engineering (don’t tell the anti-GMO crowd) which has lead to the rapid and unprecedented development of a safe and effective vaccine that has a real shot at ending the pandemic in the coming months, providing of course that the anti vaxxers can be as effectively sidelined as the white supremacists.
For all the stress and hand wringing, and when you look at how we have reacted to similar stressors in the past, we should actually be profoundly grateful for how amazingly well we are doing… for now.
HOLLY DAYS 