Happy Thanksgiving
November 27, 2025
Happy Thanksgiving
Gratefulness is one of the most cherished qualities of the soul. It arises from an awareness that we are blessed. Something has entered our lives that we could not have given ourselves. Gratitude awakens when we recognize that without that gift, we would be at a loss.
Genuine gratitude not only appreciates the blessing itself but acknowledges its source. When we give thanks, we participate in a sacred exchange. We receive with humility and with a grateful heart and then give our thanks. Since the 1530s, the word Thanksgiving has meant simply “giving thanks.” Yet its essence reaches far deeper than a word or a holiday. It is a way of living.
We are all grateful for many things, such as our homes, our friends, our families, our health, and our accomplishments. These are precious blessings, yet they exist primarily on the outer layer of our lives. Beneath them lies another, deeper level, one we rarely pause to feel or express. It is found in our soul’s depths.
In these depths dwell the soul’s true qualities. These are attributes, powers, sensitivities, and capacities that come from our soul’s being tethered to the Divine. Many of us live unaware of these gifts until life calls them forth.
I know a woman whose father cruelly abused her as a child. The wounds she carried — both physical and emotional — could have defined her. Yet today she is a gifted teacher of students with special needs, a devoted wife and mother, and a radiant soul. When I asked how she endured and transcended such suffering, she told me, quietly, “I found I had compassion I did not know I had. My heart has always gone out to others, but when it came to my father, I withheld my forgiveness. Only because of this freeing and overwhelming compassion I discovered deep within, could I see him as the damaged person he was— a person who needed forgiveness.”
Her compassion was not merely sympathy; it was deeply rooted in her spirit. It ran so deep that it became self-sacrificial — a type of sacrifice that allows us to dispense with ego to see the larger picture. Hers is the kind of compassion that forgave the unforgivable. It was from this divine well that she drew the strength to forgive. That kind of love, and the gratitude for it is not learned; it is awakened from the depths of the soul.
Today, as we give thanks for our homes, our health, and our loved ones, let us also give thanks for the deeper gifts —the divine energies within that make the impossible possible. And let us give thanks that these gifts are also in the souls of others, and we are recipients of their profound and deepest love.
Some of you have believed in others when those others could not believe in themselves. Some of you carry others the extra mile, even when no one has ever asked them to. Some of you face death and somehow find courage enough to stare it down. Some of you love the unlovable and remain patient in unbearable circumstances. Some of you endure humiliation yet never lose self-respect. Some of you are peacemakers who continue to speak the truth, even when it costs you dearly.
These are the sacred powers of the soul, and there are many. They are divine qualities expressing themselves through us.
Take a few moments today to go inward. Remember a time when you did something you never thought you could do, like when strength, love, or courage seemed to arise from nowhere. Ask yourself: Where did that power come from? Could it have been the Divine moving through me? What a gift you have been given!
The deeper and stronger the gift, the deeper and stronger is the gratefulness.
Deep Happiness to you this Thanksgiving.
Dear God,
On blended knee, we give you thanks and praise. Amen
