It is something of a ritual for people of faith to go around the Thanksgiving table giving thanks for something other than the excessive amount of food they are about to consume.
These are usually hurried personal recitals with all eyes on the cooling meal. But occasionally, we manage to reach beyond ourselves and give thanks for something that impacts others.
But this year? What can we be thankful for a year after the presidential election, a year after those of us who were appalled that day are now horrified to discover it’s worse than we imagined: families wrenched apart by ICE agents, food and medical benefits cut for the most vulnerable, racism and gender discrimination becoming the norm rather than the aberration, and a national abdication of all responsibility to the world’s poorest, hungriest, and sickest peoples and nations?
Silver Linings.
No one will ever accuse me of being an optimist, but out of pure necessity I have begun to collect silver linings. Though not always easy to discern, the glimmering rims God hangs on these dark clouds are visible. A silver lining that has the world holding its breath is the nascent peace process in Gaza. This breakthrough proves that 1) God does, indeed, move in mysterious ways; and 2) Tony Blair has mad skills, however quietly he executes them.
The No Kings protests shined a light on millions of Americans determined to advocate for democracy and reject efforts to marginalize the vulnerable, impoverished, immigrants, and minorities. They also loudly protested the executive branch using the military against citizens, often in opposition to elected officials. This nationwide commitment became more concrete on November 4 when voters expressed a marked preference for common decency and inclusion.
Here in Connecticut there’s some real shimmering going on. In response to growing food and housing insecurity, Hartford’s House of Bread has renewed its 30-year partnership with Saint Patrick St Anthony Church and Franciscan Center for Urban Renewal in downtown Hartford to address gaps left by the administration’s cuts. House of Bread, founded 45 years ago by two nuns handing out coffee and doughnuts on Hartford streets, now serves 1,000 people a day across various programs in the region. For decades, St. Patrick St. Anthony’s Franciscan Friars and parishioners have partnered in this work as part of the parish’s own commitment to addressing hunger, poverty, and homelessness downtown.
The joined Norwich parishes of St Mary’s, mostly Haitian, and St. Peter and Paul, mostly white, are working together to help a Haitian mother who has fought back from extreme illness and disability to live in her own home with her son. The churches have committed to continue to support and protect her in every way possible.
As The Lord’s Pantry at St. James Church in New London struggles to meet the increasing need for food distribution, pantry administrators learned that a transformative, anonymous gift had been made to the program through the Community Foundation of Eastern Connecticut.
When the government shutdown threatened to cut off SNAP benefits to over 360,000 Connecticut residents, Gov. Ned Lamont stepped up and committed to provide funding. Lamont joined other political and business leaders working to toe the line between tweaking the president’s policies and irritating him enough to cause dangerous retribution.
Perhaps we should be most grateful this Thanksgiving for the opportunities we’ve been given to be silver linings for our brothers and sisters, and ourselves. Jerry Lowney, founder of Norwich-based Haitian Health Foundation – which continues to do heroic work despite massive aid cuts and the violence ravaging Haiti – once told me that people often ask him why God allows suffering in the world. It may be, he thinks, that suffering is allowed so that the rest of us may seek to be saved by our efforts to alleviate it. It’s as good an answer as any I’ve heard.
Marci Alborghetti is a writer living in New London with her husband, Charlie Duffy